[Program Note: After following the impeachment trial all last week -- including a rare Saturday column -- I am punting for today's holiday and am just going to present a repeat column instead. Happy holiday Monday, everyone, and I'll see you back here tomorrow for a new column.]

Originally published February 17, 2014

Happy Presidents' Day to all!

Well, to all who live in Hawai'i, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Vermont, at the very least. These are the states which officially recognize today as "Presidents' Day." Unlike other federal holidays, however, there is much disagreement and controversy surrounding the holiday. Not so much the holiday itself, but over what to call it (and when to celebrate it). In states such as California and Alaska (and, notably, the state of Washington), the apostrophe moves and it is known as "President's Day." This can be read as either snubbing all the other presidents (since the holiday originally celebrated one president's birthday), or celebrating the presidency itself (or the day of the president, to put it another way). But even without such grammatical gymnastics, the day has plenty of other official titles. Some states such as Michigan and New Jersey dispense with the apostrophe altogether and just call it "Presidents Day." Some states get flowery ("Recognition of the birthday of George Washington" in North Dakota), and some get inclusive ("Lincoln's and Washington's Birthday" in Montana, "Lincoln/Washington/Presidents' Day" in Arizona, and "Washington and Lincoln Day" in Utah), and some even throw in a local personage to the mix ("George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day" in Arkansas). Wikipedia lists ten separate official state titles for the holiday, in fact.

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Donald Trump's second impeachment trial came to an end today. This was fully expected, however the beginning of the day contained some serious uncertainties about how long the trial would go on for. Once that was settled, however, things moved towards the inevitable conclusion.

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On this date in history, ten-score-and-twelve years ago, Abraham Lincoln was born. Also on this date, 22 years ago, the Senate voted to acquit Bill Clinton of the charges made against him in only the second impeachment trial in American history. Today, this year, saw the fourth day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate. Today was the day the legal team for Donald Trump got to present their defense.

They were allotted 16 hours to do so. The prosecution took more than nine hours to make their case, but the defense took less than three to make theirs. Most of their case was clearly presented for an audience of one -- former president Donald Trump (or, as they insisted on calling him, "the 45th president") -- since they aren't going to have to work too hard to get the votes they need (which is what everyone, including them, is assuming). So they were free to structure much of their defense to keep Trump happy -- including even, at the end, a blatant attempt to defend Trump's Big Lie (which nobody really expected them to touch on).

After the defense rested, the Senate (much to my dismay... I thought I was done for the day very early on...) opened the question period, where all the senators are able to ask questions of both legal teams and get five-minute answers in response.

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On the third day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, the prosecution rested. Having made a very strong and climactic case yesterday, today the House managers finished up their presentation and ended with their closing argument, part of which was a pre-buttal to the expected arguments from the defense.

The defense is expected to only take one day to make their case, meaning both sides will have been heard at the end of the day tomorrow. The lawyer on Trump's team has reportedly withdrawn his objection to working on the Sabbath, therefore the entire trial could even be over on Saturday.

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The second day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial was dedicated to the opening of the prosecution's case against him. The House managers have a full 16 hours to present their case, but it remains to be seen how much of that they'll actually use. When I began writing this (during their dinner break), they had already been at it for five and a half hours, and they didn't adjourn for the day -- but then later they only used a limited amount of time afterwards (the total came in under the full eight hours allotted for the day, in other words).

By my count, eight House managers made presentations today: Representatives Jamie Raskin, Joe Neguse, and David Cicilline from yesterday, in addition to Representatives Joaquin Castro, Eric Swalwell, Madeleine Dean, and Ted Lieu, as well as Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was obvious why Raskin chose her to be a manager, since she not only was his student at one point, but so far she has been the most effective speaker of the day.

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The second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump began today in the United States Senate. Today was largely a procedural day, which began with an initial vote to adopt the impeachment rules that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell worked out yesterday. This was followed by an extended argument from both the House impeachment managers and Trump's lawyers about whether even holding this trial was constitutional or not. At the end, the Senate voted to affirm that the trial is indeed constitutional, by a vote of 56 to 44. The trial then adjourned until noon tomorrow.

Before I get to my impressions about the presentations made, a word about that vote tally. The Senate has already essentially voted on this question, but this was the official vote within the confines of the actual impeachment trial. However, the previous vote was only 55-45. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana seems to have changed his mind, which came as a total surprise (since he's not exactly seen as a never-Trumper or any kind of moderate).

Cassidy explained his vote by saying: "If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House managers and former President Trump's lawyers. The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president's team did not." He added: "President Trump's team was disorganized.... If I'm an impartial juror and one side is doing a great job and the other side is doing a terrible job on the issue at hand, I'm going to vote for the side that did the good job."

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For only the fourth time in American history (and for the second time in approximately one year), the Senate will convene an impeachment trial tomorrow, to consider the charges against Donald Trump. Even at this late date, however, there are many unanswered questions about what exactly is going to take place this week, so I thought I'd review where things stand as of now (some of these issues may actually be resolved by the time I write, edit, format, and post this article, I should mention in advance).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have still not agreed upon the basic framework for the trial. McConnell is often likened to a turtle for the way he looks, but he really deserves the comparison for his ability to slow everything down to a crawl. So even with fewer than 24 hours until the trial starts, there is still no formal agreement on how it will proceed.

What is expected is that the trial will take place in the afternoons. I've heard it will start at 1:00 P.M. every day (Eastern Time), but even that could still change. At least portions of the trial will be televised on many cable news channels. On broadcast television, my guess is that PBS will cover the whole thing gavel-to-gavel every day, while the other networks may only partially air it. But that's just a guess -- we'll have to wait and see.

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This week we were treated to the spectacle of the Republican Party largely voting in support of an advocate of using deadly violence towards her political opponents. How the mighty have fallen -- since this used to be the party that dearly loved to sanctimoniously lecture everyone on how high morals were an absolute necessity in politics, and that even the concept of "moral relativism" was evil. That all went out the window when they nominated the most amoral man imaginable for president, of course, but it's still rather shocking to see this once-publicly-righteous party wallow in the filth of QAnon and flirt with ideas like advocacy for assassinating political opponents.

Next week, we'll be treated to the spectacle of the Republican Party explaining why they'll largely be voting (once again) to support deadly violence towards political opponents, except this time it'll be even more egregious, since the violence in question this time wasn't theoretical but actual -- and since the violence was directed against Congress itself. But not even this will stop Republicans from putting their stamp of approval on it, by voting to acquit the prime instigator of the violence of any responsibility. Republicans also (for younger readers who may never have come across the concept) used to be for "taking personal responsibility" (except when they said it they were always talking about minorities on welfare, unmarried mothers, gay people with AIDS, and others who were, to them, to be considered not only undesirable but morally lacking). Those were the days, eh?

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As we head towards next week's impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the Senate, I think there are three important things to remember and to stress. In fact, I wish more in the media would point these things out on a regular basis, but if they fall down on the job then Democrats should immediately pick up the slack and remind everyone of a few hard, cold facts.

The first thing to stress is that the attempted insurrection isn't something that can be swept under a rug -- people died, people were seriously injured, and our very democracy was under attack. Second is that while some Republicans have been denouncing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for her stated belief in many conspiracy theories, it is actually Trump who is the king of conspiracy theories -- so he must likewise be denounced (otherwise such denunciations are worthless, from Republicans). And third, each and every Republican officeholder needs to be asked flat-out whether he or she thinks Joe Biden is the duly-elected and legitimate president of the United States. Because absent that simple affirmation, all their talk of how they're ridding their party of conspiracy theorists is pure hogwash -- and journalists should refuse to air it.

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Democrats, understandably, are salivating at the prospect of making a mountain of political hay over Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a pro-Trump Republican who got elected despite believing in QAnon and pretty much every other conspiracy theory from the last quarter-century or so.

More importantly, when considering her fitness to serve in the United States government, Greene also approved of the idea of shooting Nancy Pelosi in the head. She is thus, not to put too fine a point on it, a terrorist sympathizer. Shooting your political enemies is a pretty textbook definition of terrorism, after all.

Previous to the insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol, Greene called for it to become "our 1776 moment," which is also pretty clear-cut. She supported an attempt to rebel against the sitting government (of which she was now part), plain and simple. How else can "our 1776 moment" be interpreted?

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