Seize the Day After Day
For years I have adopted Carpe Diem as one of my personal themes. I have a copy of my 60th Birthday invitation which declares Carpe Diem. It was seeing that invitation on my office wall that caused me to think about how long I have been working to seize the day, over and over again. Today and tomorrow (as well as yesterday), I have been focused on seizing the moment of this Second Impeachment Trial and watching as much of it as I can. It is an historic and horrible episode in our country’s story. Watching all the newly released video from the official capital security cameras has added texture to the horror of that day a month ago. This is a story that tells itself in modern digital photography and almost no narrative by the House Impeachment Managers is needed, but in some ways helps to force realization of all of what has gone on. The images of the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers being beaten and battered, poked with poles for hours and being sprayed with Bear and Pepper spray, all leave me with one feeling; gratitude. The gratitude is not just for their bravery and physical harm they endured on our behalf. The real gratitude is that with the one exception of the woman who was shot while breaching the doors to the Senate, the police in charge refrained from using deadly force against these reckless and goonish rioters. It is amazing to see the duress that these brave people suffered through and yet they restrained themself in large part from doing what was perhaps totally warranted in the circumstances, to put down the insurgents with lethal force. To do so puts a poignancy to issue of righteousness in the prosecution of these rioters and the people who consciously and wantonly incited them, directed them, spurred them on and then lauded them.
I believe every American should watch the entirety of the trial and the evidence. To hear that the likes of Josh Howley, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul were ignoring the videos shown yesterday and keeping busy with paperwork rather than watching these important pieces of evidence makes me think that such an act by itself should disqualify them from voting in this trial. There isn’t a judge anywhere that would allow that degree of juror indifference without charging the juror with contempt of court. I wish there were a way to call them out for their bad behavior and petulance. They do not deserve to be called U.S. Senators and I feel could rightly be charged with dereliction of duty to their oath to the country. Their blatant partisan posture is beyond the pale. If you spend the time to watch this trial and watch all the new video documentation, you will be bearing witness to one of the most meaningful events in our history. It is hard video to watch and perhaps even harder audio to listen to, but it is critical that we all seize the moment to see this all with our own eyes and and hear it with our own ears. We all lived this history a month ago, but we were subject to the video angles available to us on that day. Some video has come out since then, but it is clear that the resources of the United States Congress has been brought to bear to organize the video data in a way that allows someone not so familiar with the footprint of the Capitol building to understand the exact actions on that day and the timeline events followed as the joint sessions of Congress were alternately in session and in retreat for their safety.
This is starting to be a busy time for me. On the expert witness front, in addition to my ongoing weekly testimony in the multi-arbitration 401(k) case, I have now been engaged in the pursuit of a new case that focuses on discount retail brokerage and the responsibilities such providers owe their clients that they embrace on their platform. Based on this morning’s call with the class action lawyers assigned to the case, I may be called to engage in the case preparation very quickly on a rushed basis over the next several weeks. If that happens, it will be an intense deep dive into an arcane and complex arena that is rife with regulatory hurdles to assess and understand. At the same time, I have suddenly learned that there may be a significant transaction for the purchase and or funding of my venture company that will need to be prepared and arranged over the next few weeks. That will be the culmination of three years of running the company and while there are no assurances that this will come to pass, all of the key ingredients to make this work, seem to be in place to make something meaningful happen. That will certainly take time to come to pass. And last week I had a conversation with the Finance Department Chair at the University where I am teaching and there seems to be high interest in expanding my portfolio of activities with the University as a faculty member. So all of this adds up to a promise that the next month or more is bound to be even busier. But that is no excuse.
There is no excuse for not paying attention in the moment to what is happening in Washington D.C. right now. I, for one, will make the time to pay attention closely this week to the Impeachment Trial. We are fortunate that everyone from Republicans and Democrats alike are in agreement that a shorter trial is better than a longer trial. It is not a complicated event, it is not a complicated charge. Incitement to insurrection is clear and precise and the impeachment charge is one item only, so the trial can be both fair and concise at the same time. I know that Impeachment is both a legal and a political process and I know that one of the central strategies to Republicans (and perhaps some Democrats as well) is to stay the partisan course at all costs. But the evidence seems crystal clear for all of us to see…so long as we choose to watch.
Donald Trump gathered his forces with rhetoric both direct and over social media to specifically support his notion that he was really the winner of an election which he clearly lost and for which all his litigious efforts have failed to prove otherwise. He spoke in a clearly belligerent manner, charging them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to take back “their country” with the warning that if they didn’t fight in that manner, they would lose their country forever. He continued to tweet admonitions against the process of vote counting underway and against his very own Vice President for not discarding his clear and constitutional duty to assist in the peaceful transition of power. Furthermore, Trump spent hours back at the White House watching the events unfold and wondering why his advisors were not as jazzed as he was about the violence taking place on his behalf. In so doing he abrogated his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief and did nothing to either quell the violence or to intervene with military assistance to the MPD.
Donald Trump seized his day and I sincerely hope he will be brought to task for the nefarious and anti-American nature of how he chose to seize his day. For my part, I will continue to seize the day after day of maintaining my obligation as an American citizen by watching and adding to my fact base of exactly what has occurred in our beloved country.