Last night we made Gravad Lax sandwiches by spreading butter on square Ciabatta, and the slices of Gravad Lax and then a smear of salmon sauce, which contains olive oil, Swedish sweet mustard, and dill.
This morning we awakened at 4:00 and got dressed and packed the sandwiches in Suzette’s purse and drove to the airport for our flight to Denver at 6:05. When we arrived in Denver at 9:00 Suzette ate an egg sandwich w by a healthy food restaurant.
We caught a 10:30 flight from Denver to Philadelphia. When we arrived at the Philadelphia airport we caught the commuter train from the airport to the 30th St. Amtrak Station with seven minutes to spare and caught the train to Elizabethtown with about five minutes to spare. We were met at the train by Suzette’s younger brother, Don, who drove us to his house around 6:30. When we arrived Don’s wife, Bev was just finishing cooking dinner. She was cooking chicken and dumplings in a pressure cooker that I had never seen before. It was named Insta Pot or Quick Pot. Bev turned it off and released the pressure and she was able to open it after a couple oF minutes after the steam released.
What was inside was amazing, chicken in a chicken flavored broth with clouds of dumplings floating on top.
She had also made mashed potatoes and carrots and green beans.
We talked and talked about all sorts of things; Mom, retirement strategies, travel, where to stay between Phoenix and San Diego, and then we began watching the coverage of the hearings on impeachment that began today. At 8:30 Bev served slices of the apple pie she had made today with fresh Granny Smith apples with scoops of vanilla ice cream. This flavorful pie with its crunchy shorted crust was the best part of a very good meal. Don opened the bottle of Italian red wine I had bought during our last visit and we sipped wine and watched impeachment coverage on CNN and MSNBC until 10:00, when we went to bed.
Don was wonderful about not inflicting his Republican views on us.
From the first day of testimony summaries I could see how this was going to develop. The first day of testimony disclosed a new fact that needed to be pursued, a telephone call from Sondland directly to the President on July 26, 2019 in which the President was heard by others to not be willing to release military aid until Zelenzky made a public statement on CNN that Ukraine was investigating the Bidens for interfering with the U.S. 2016 election. There will be many interesting twists and turns in this impeachment process before it is over.
Don made a great point. He said that it is really a public process and removal will turn on whether the public are convinced of the President’s guilt for abuse of power.
I realized that I had been looking at the process as a lawyer and needed to look at it from a different
viewpoint. Trump is fighting the process in the media while he refuses to allow access to the witnesses with the information that will reveal the true facts. In a court of law where only proven facts matter he would lose, but if he has the support of powerful channels of communication such as Fox News, he can characterize the facts anyway he chooses and is not constrained by cross examination and perjury for lying. He is using the media efficiently.
Don’s formula for watching the process of watching MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN and coming to his own conclusion about the facts seems like a good strategy.
In conclusion, what offends my sense of how trials work, which is to bring your best facts into court and let a judge decide is not what we are seeing. What we really have is a refusal to engage in a fact finding process by the President while simultaneously attacking the process in the media as a witch-hunt.
Since public opinion is informed by what we hear and see in the public media, Trump may succeed with this strategy.
Don is correct when he says, “This is going to be decided in the public media.” The only open question is on what set of facts?
Bon Appetit
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