Charlie Chaplin Speaks To Strongmen January 21, 2020 Tony B.: “To mark the onset of the impeachment trial, I wish each Senate juror could absorb this perspective-rattling speech first thing Tuesday morning as she or he begins to parse truth from falsehood, to put constitutional principal over personal gain: Charlie Chaplin’s eight-minute exhortation to defend democracy at the end of The Great Dictator.” (Hey: why are there no women dictators?) And while we’re watching movies, have you seen The Great Hack? Just as the book Rat F**ked explains the RedMap plan by which Republican gained control of Congress and state legislatures with a minority of the vote, so this Netflix explains how we got Trump. It’s the Cambridge Analytica story . . . and it’s gripping. Gripping, too — The Report, free on Amazon Prime, with Adam Driver and Annette Benning (as Senator Feinstein) . . . and John McCain as John McCain. I almost stopped watching in the middle of the torture scenes (oh, sorry: enhanced interrogation; we don’t torture) because what we did was so truly awful. But don’t quit. And as it ends, consider that Trump believes torture is okay. If anything, says the man with the bone spur, “I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”