This week in the saga

The week his blood takes the stand: his sons testify one by one about statements they say they never touched, and at 2:28 in the morning the defendant is awake, telling the judge to leave his children alone. Between court dates he refuels in Texas — the Silent Majority rising, a rally roaring back at him — and then Monday comes. He announces his own testimony like a fight card, rides downtown, raises his hand, and turns the witness box into a podium: the judge pleads with the lawyers to control him, and no one can. This trial is ridiculous, he rules from the stand — and by dusk he has recast the whole day as a campaign stop he was billed for. The chapter that began with a jailhouse portrait ends with the defendant testifying in his own name, unsilenced. Never surrender.