Tag Archives: Capitol riots 01-06-2021

A Bombshell That Few Noticed

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, Law and justice, Political commentary, voting rights

Last week, we found out that the former guy had instructed then-acting-attorney general Jeffrey Rosen to “Just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R congressmen.”  I saw this headline in numerous news sites that I visit daily, and like most of the rest of you, I growled a bit, called him a few choice names, then moved on to other stories.  But as Robert Reich points out … that was the wrong move.  This is THE story that is most important in its implications.  I’ll let Mr. Reich explain …

A Trump bombshell quietly dropped last week. And it should shock us all

Robert Reich

A newly released memo shows that Trump told the acting attorney general: ‘Just say the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me and the [Republican] congressmen’

We’ve become so inured to Donald Trump’s proto-fascism that we barely blink an eye when we learn that he tried to manipulate the 2020 election. Yet the most recent revelation should frighten every American to their core.

On Friday, the House oversight committee released notes of a 27 December telephone call from Trump to then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, in which Trump told Rosen: “Just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R congressmen.” The notes were taken by Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s deputy, who was also on the call.

The release of these notes has barely made a stir. The weekend news was filled with more immediate things – infrastructure! The Delta strain! Inflation! Wildfires! In light of everything else going on, Trump’s bizarre efforts in the last weeks of his presidency seem wearily irrelevant. Didn’t we already know how desperate he was?

In a word, no. This revelation is hugely important.

Rosen obviously rejected Trump’s request. But what if Rosen had obeyed Trump and said to the American public that the election was corrupt – and then “left the rest” to Trump and the Republican congressmen? What would Trump’s and the Republicans’ next moves have been? And which Republican congressmen were in cahoots with Trump in this attempted coup d’état?

Make no mistake: this was an attempted coup.

Trump knew it. Just weeks earlier, then attorney general William Barr said the justice department had found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have overturned the results.

And a few days after Trump’s call to Rosen – on 2 January – Trump told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to “find” votes to change the election outcome. He berated Raffensperger for not doing more to overturn the election.

Emails released last month also show that Trump and his allies in the last weeks of his presidency pressured the justice department to investigate totally unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud – forwarding them conspiracy theories and even a draft legal brief they hoped would be filed with the supreme court.

Some people, especially Republican officeholders, believe we should simply forget these sordid details. We must not.

For the first time in the history of the United States we did not have a peaceful transition of power. For the first time in American history, a president refused – still refuses – to concede, and continues to claim, with no basis in fact, that the election was “stolen” from him. For the first time in history, a president actively plotted a coup.

It would have been bad enough were Trump a mere crackpot acting on his own pathetic stage – a would-be dictator who accidentally became president and then, when he lost re-election, went bonkers – after which he was swept into the dustbin of history.

We might then merely regret this temporary lapse in American presidential history. At best, Trump would be seen as a fool and the whole affair an embarrassment to the country.

But Trump was no accident and he’s not in any dustbin. He has turned one of America’s two major parties into his own cult. He has cast the major political division in the US as a clash between those who believe him about the 2020 election and those who do not. He has emboldened state Republicans to execute the most brazen attack on voting rights since Jim Crow. Most Republican senators and representatives dare not cross him. Some of his followers continue to threaten violence against the government. By all accounts, he is running for president again in 2024.

Donald Trump’s proto-fascism poses the largest internal threat to American democracy since the civil war.

What to do about it? Fight it, and the sooner the better.

This final revelation – Trump’s 27 December call to the acting attorney general in which he pleads “Just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” – should trigger section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars anyone from holding office who “engaged in insurrection” against the US. The current attorney general of the United States, Merrick Garland, should issue an advisory opinion clearly stating this. If Trump wants to take it to the supreme court, fine.

Trumpism Is Not Over

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Election 2024, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, religion, Social commentary

I don’t typically do a re-blog of a re-blog, for I do understand that it’s tedious to have to click once, read a small bit, then click again to read the rest, but in this case, I make an exception, for our friend Jerry (aka Grumpy) has written a post that I think is worth both your time and that extra ‘click’. Our other friend, Jeff, over at On the Fence Voters has re-blogged Jerry’s post and I am re-blogging Jeff’s reblog of Jerry’s … confused yet? Yeah, me too. So, just read it because Jerry offers remarkable insight that we all need to be aware of. Thanks Jerry! Thanks Jeff!!!

On The Fence Voters

Our friend Jerry over at Grumpy’s Grumblings has another excellent post detailing the continued capitulation of the white evangelical community toward the disgraced former president. I’ve included a link at the end to continue reading. Thanks Jerry!

In my wildest dreams and worst nightmares, prior to November 2016 I never could have imagined Donald J. Trump being elected as President of the United States. The mere thought of it seemed like an outrageous joke. But it happened.

Then, I was sure that in only a matter of months, the American people—including those who voted for him—would see Donald Trump as the vicious, mean-spirited, self-serving dunce he really is. (Although, I was shocked that any person, much less millions of Americans, couldn’t see that right from the start.) But it didn’t happen.

I felt certain that at some point, most of the evangelicals who voted for the world’s greatest grifter would…

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Republicans Must Not Be Allowed to Retake the House

Posted on by under Election 2022, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Mid-term elections are just fifteen months away … or, to phrase it another way, mid-term elections are fifteen months away, approximately 450 days, and a lot can happen in fifteen months.  In all my history as a political animal, I’ve never put a lot of importance on the “party”, but more on the individual.  Today, though, that has all changed as we are in the age of uber-partisanship and the values of the two parties are miles apart.  From where I stand, the Republican Party shoots itself in the foot a little more every day, but I also understand that not everyone shares my viewpoint.  However, I think that in the midterms in some 450 days, it will be the end of this nation as we know it if the Republican Party manages to capture a majority in both chambers of Congress.  And folks … it could happen.  Every day they lie through their teeth to voters who may not be inclined to seek the truth, but find it easier to believe what they are told by the likes of Kevin McCarthy, Louie Gohmert, Mitch McConnell and others who long ago sold their consciences.

Our friend TokyoSand over at Political Charge has written a post showing just one reason that the Republicans cannot be allowed to re-take majority roles in Congress.  I strongly urge you to read her post and give this some thought …

Republicans Must Not Be Allowed to Retake the House

By TokyoSand on

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Republicans don’t deserve to govern.

Last night, reports surfaced that Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was at an event, raising money for the midterms, where he riled up the crowd by saying he wanted them to watch Nancy Pelosi hand him the Speaker’s gavel after they won the midterms. He followed up by saying, “It will be hard not to hit her with it.”

Read that again.

The top Republican in the House chose to casually suggest violence against the female Speaker of the House because he knew that’s what his supporters and voters want to hear. This, after Trump supporters specifically sought out Pelosi during the January 6th insurrection.

… Read more of this post

Hell No, They Won’t Go …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary, voting rights

Last night I read that a number of House Republicans are protesting the mandate that Congressional aides and visitors must wear masks, as per the U.S. Capitol Police.  Of course they are … that is all they do, is object to anything and everything. They are much like the annoying, obnoxious lawyer who jumps up and dramatically yells “Objection, your Honour” every time the prosecution calls a witness or asks a question.  I have referred to the GOP more than once as “The party of ‘No’” and this just proves my point.

The Republican members of Congress, with few exceptions, are parrots, repeating their chants over and over again, never speaking with intellect, never saying anything of substance.  It’s just a continual chant of “Hell no, we won’t go”.  Hell no, they won’t support the right of We the People, the taxpayers who pay their bloated salaries, to vote.  Hell no, they won’t support taking care of the people of this nation who have suffered financially and otherwise during this ongoing pandemic.  Hell no, they won’t tell their constituents to get the vaccine so that this nation might someday rise above the ashes of COVID.  Hell no, they won’t encourage people to wear a mask in order to protect themselves and others, for they won’t even wear a mask themselves.  Hell no, they won’t vote for an increase in the minimum wage such that every working person is at the very least above the poverty level.  Hell no, they don’t want an investigation into the attempted coup on January 6th because they are ALL complicit to one extent or another.  Hell no, the Republicans DO NOT CARE ONE WHIT for the people of this country.

I am sick and tired of listening to Kevin McCarthy telling lies that he knows are lies, as he tries to worm his way into the heart of only one person … the former guy.  I am fed up to the gills with Jim Jordan and his rolled up blue sleeves and yellow necktie (does the ‘man’ not own any other clothing?) as he continues to push back, without cause, against every single thing that President Biden and his administration are trying to do for We the People!  I literally feel nauseous every time I see the newbies like Margie Greene, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, and Lauren Boebert pretend to be viable members of our legislative body, while at the same time toting guns into the Capitol, supporting conspiracy theories, and killing their own constituents by lying to them.

And what is being done to stop the madness?  Nothing.  Talk, talk, talk, and more talk on Capitol Hill, and nothing changes.  But it isn’t only the politicians … what the hell are We the People doing?  Nothing.  The anti-vaxxers are in the streets screeching about their ‘god-given’ right to refuse the vaccine, to refuse to wear a mask, but where are the protests about our constitutionally mandated voting rights being taken away?  The 2nd Amendment supporters are vocal enough, but where are the rest of us, those of us who believe that our right to safety is more important than their right to their killing machines?  Understand that I include myself in this conversation, for I’m not out protesting loudly, either, but merely sitting in my kitchen office writing a blog, occasionally writing to members of Congress to express my displeasure, and lying awake nights cursing at the ceiling.  We are, it seems, the silent majority.  Meanwhile, the Republicans are being heard loud and clear, killing whatever is left of this nation.  The Founding Fathers would not be proud of what we have become.

A few nights ago a friend left the following comment on one of my posts:

“And so America ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. A voice from beneath the rubble, ‘I really didn’t mean to kill America. I just wanted to hear myself talk.’”

And you know what?  He’s not wrong.

Snarky Snippets Volume 100+

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Some days my head simply spins on its axis (my neck) trying to keep up with everything happening in the nation, the world today.  There are days that I can pick a topic, focus, and write a relatively coherent post on a single topic.  Other days, however, I simply cannot gain that level of focus that is requisite, so instead I toss out a few snippets, usually snarky ones.  Today is such a day.  The week is topsy-turvy and my mind is spinning at somewhere around 136 rpm (revolutions per minute).  Thus, today I give you another episode of Snarky Snippets …

Will Congress find their conscience, or will millions be living on the streets soon?

The current eviction moratorium, that prohibits landlords from evicting tenants who have fallen behind on their rent, is set to expire tomorrow.  This means, in a nutshell, that millions of people could be without a home soon … millions, not hundreds, not thousands, but millions, the majority of them children.  It was hoped that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would extend the moratorium, given the new surge in cases due to the Delta variant (and the anti-vaxxers), but last month, when the Supreme Court upheld the current moratorium, they also made it clear that it could not be extended again except by an act of Congress.

President Biden called on Congress to act “without delay” to extend the eviction moratorium. Biden’s request prompted House and Senate Democrats to begin exploring whether they could rally enough votes to approve the new protections for renters. It remains unclear if Congress has the time and support to act ahead of the current July 31st deadline.

I have very little doubt that the members of the House of Representatives will rally and manage to vote ‘yea’ on a hastily prepared bill that will keep millions of people sheltered.  However, once such a bill reaches the Senate, possibly even sometime today, it will almost certainly go into the “Dead Bills” bin along with the For the People Act and probably hundreds of other pieces of legislation that the senate Republicans, along with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are holding up in a game of roulette.  Let’s hope I’m wrong, for with the current heat wave that is affecting some 20 states at the moment, this is no time to be living on the streets.

The Four Stooges … or the Four Gs

Yesterday, Representatives Matt Gaetz (the sex trafficker), Margie Greene (QAnon member in good standing), Paul Gosar (white supremacist extraordinaire), and Louie Gohmert (the idiot in too many ways to count), went to the D.C. Department of Corrections (where they should all be standing on the other side) in an attempt to visit some of the prisoners who have been arrested in connection with their role in attacking Congress and the Capitol on January 6th.  They were turned away by jail officials.  The Four Gs claimed they were there to inspect the treatment of suspects.  Funny, isn’t it, that at least tens of thousands pass through the prison system each year, yet these three never came to check on those people.

Now, I may have a suspicious mind, but given that the four were accompanied by cameras from right-wing news organizations, I have a sneaking hunch that this was intended as a photo op, as an excuse to rile the masses yet again, as they surely knew they couldn’t just waltz in and visit with the prisoners of their choice.

When told that they were “obstructing entrance into this facility,” Gohmert responded …

“We’re the people that vote on whether or not to fund you, at what level, and we’re trespassing?”

WHOA … can we say ‘abuse of power’ or throwing one’s weight around?  For the record, Congress has ZERO influence, for the D.C. Detention Center is not a federal facility and is fully funded by Washington, D.C. taxpayers.

The action at the jail was the group’s second this week, after they barged into the Justice Department on Tuesday trying to ask questions about the detention of January 6th suspects awaiting trial and whether any were being held in solitary confinement. Gosar called them “political prisoners” who are being “persecuted” and unjustly punished.  Oh wait … pobrecitos … were they not the ones dressed like maniacal cavemen carrying clubs, bear spray, and other weapons on that fateful day?  Were they not the ones that scaled the outer walls of the Capitol, beat police officers, broke windows to gain access, and caused millions of dollars in damage to OUR property?  Excuse me, perhaps I’m thinking of a different bunch of bozos.

Gohmert seemed to be the spokesperson for the bunch and said …

“The supervisor came down and was standing right here and turned her back on me. The other one said she won’t talk anymore and that we’re trespassers. We’re in totalitarian, Marxist territory here. This is the way third-world people get treated.”

Get a life, Louie!!!

And of course, ol’ Margie also feigned indignance …

“We suspect there is a two-tier justice system in the United States, for Trump supporters that are charged for Jan. 6 and catch-and-release for BLM rioters.”

Yeah, that’s right, Margie … when a cop pulls a person over, the first question out of his mouth is to ask whether the person is a trumpeter or not … if he is, then he is carted off to the Gulag, never to be seen or heard from again.  Sheesh, but how did we manage to get so many dumbasses in Congress this time ‘round???  And four of ‘em whose surname starts with ‘G’.  One media outlet, The Hill, referred to them as the ‘seditious four’ … sounds about right to me.

A dangerous thing to say

One of the Four G’s, Margie Greene, made a very dangerous statement when speaking to the Alabama Federation of Republican Women last week.  First, she told the group that President Biden “is going to be sending one of his police state friends to your door,” referring to the volunteers the president has mentioned sending to rural areas to help people better understand and have access to the vaccination.  But the worst part was when she told them …

“We all love our Second Amendment rights, and we don’t like the federal government coming on our property to tell us what to do. You have HIPAA rights and you do not have to tell your medical information and you can tell them to get off your front porch and get off your front lawn.”

WHOA NELLIE!  This is a lawmaker, a member of Congress, advising people to get their guns out … this is incitement to violence, plain and simple!  In my book, that statement alone is grounds for her immediate expulsion from Congress.  Mr. Kevin McCarthy damn well better take action … it is long past due.

The U.S. Has Lost Its Collective Conscience

Posted on by under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Personal, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Today, I am deeply disappointed in a large portion of this nation.  Oh, there are many reasons, but my current angst is fueled by some responses I have read and heard to the testimony of the four police officers before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection on Tuesday.

First, I would like to ask that you watch this 8-minute interview Don Lemon did with Officer Michael Fanone yesterday.  Lemon plays a clip of a voicemail that Officer Fanone received during the time he was testifying and … it is so vile, so disgusting, so cruel … but I think it’s important to understand how a certain segment of our society thinks.  My apologies, but I cannot embed this video, however here is the link:

Don Lemon interview with Officer Michael Fanone

Tragic and disgusting.  Officer Fanone and every other officer who defended the Capitol and protected our lawmakers on that day are heroes, and yet this is how we treat them???

And then there were a multitude of comments from a variety of sources.  I won’t give the people who uttered these comments the attention they seek by mentioning their names, only their words …

  • Corrections officers around the country get the shit kicked out of them and their faces slashed many times yearly by violent inmates, yet you never see any of them crying like a little bitches at congressional hearings.
  • I am shocked at the cowardice. They should be fired – not fit for duty.
  • Cowards all.
  • Did they not even practice their fake crying before this hearing?
  • Let’s hear the testimonies of the cops from Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Portland and all the other cities who had to deal with BLM/ANTIFA riots last summer.
  • What a pussy. “You guys won, you held.” Um, people weren’t there to do anything, they got bored and left. That’s because it wasn’t an insurrection and more than half the people there walked in open doors with the permission of the police.

Some of the people uttering this filth are our elected officials, others are media ‘personalities’.  But the comment that disturbed me the most, I think, came from one of my own readers, a man I consider a friend, Scott Lawlor …

“this was not an insurrection, it was mostly peaceful people going to make their voices heard on results they didn’t agree with. now, for the record, anyone who broke the law, which was a minority by the way, should absolutely be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

they took their grievances to the seat of power, which is a better thing to do than, oh, I don’t know, burn buildings, attack people and steal, like blm and antifa did last summer causing around 2 billion dollars in property damage. The democrats in this hearing are just a bunch of crybabies, you can tell the emotionalism is all fake and for show. We weren’t an hour away from marshal law, AOC wasn’t fearing for her life since she wasn’t even there, this is just all lies and propaganda by the democrat elites and the media to paint every single republican and conservative as a brainless white supremacist and I am sick and tired of the intollerence from these elitists who believe the narrative and continue to give voice to their obvious disdain for anyone who may thing differently from them.

It’s a free country and just as a progressive can say, write, and think anything they want, I have the freedom to disagree with those thoughts but it seems to me that it’s the democrats who are more intollerant than any conservatives I know.”

He then included a video put out by The Rubin Report titled “Shameful Theatrics” whereby Dave Rubin basically echoes what Scott said, only took far longer to say it.  I must admit that it seems to me people in this country no longer care about truth, about facts, about fairness and I despair for the future of this country.  People hear someone like Tucker Carlson or Dave Rubin giving their own distorted view of the facts, whether about the COVID vaccine or Black Lives Matter or voting rights or the January 6th insurrection (and yes, it WAS an insurrection!) and they become as parrots, chirping that opinion to others, mindless of the facts.

It is a pitiful reflection on a nation when facts are thrown in the trash and sensationalism becomes the norm, when heroes who save lives are denigrated, and when truth is mocked.

Still Recovering From The Hugs & Kisses …

Posted on by under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Today, I would like to introduce you to two anomalies.  These are people, relatively young people, who serve in the U.S. Congress and are members of the Republican Party.  What, you ask, makes them an anomaly?  Two things:  they are intelligent and most importantly, they have a conscience.  Yes, a conscience … I know it’s hard to believe in this, the 21st century, the age of Republican far-right lunacy and conspiracy theories.  The two people I wish to introduce you to today are Liz Cheney, representative from Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger, representative from Illinois.  They’ve both been in the news enough that you no doubt know their names.

They are, to the best of my knowledge, the only two congressional republicans who will be serving on the House Select Committee to investigate the events of and leading up to January 6th, the day insurgents attacked Congress and attempted to overthrow our election, our choice, our government.  Cheney and Kinzinger are not serving by appointment via House Minority Leader McCarthy, but they are serving voluntarily, because their conscience demands that they be a part of finding the truth.  Their goal is not, as Jim Jordan’s and Jim Banks’ would have been, to disrupt the proceedings, to whitewash the details, to bury the facts, and to play the “whaddaboutism” game, rather their goal is to find out who was involved in the planning of the attempted coup, who played a role in inciting and encouraging the ignorant masses who stormed the U.S. Capitol that day, and bring those people into the spotlight, bring them to justice.  Their goal is to ensure that such an event can never happen again, that the remnants of a democracy will not be turned to ash and buried.

As expected, GOP leaders, if they can be called such, are attacking Cheney and Kinzinger, accusing them of harboring an anti-Trump agenda and suggesting they’re just doing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bidding. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy even debuted a new label on Monday, tagging Kinzinger and Cheney as “Pelosi Republicans.”  I wonder if he thinks this is funny?  If he does, then I am more convinced than ever that he has the mentality of a teenager sniggering behind the girls’ gym locker room.  Meanwhile, a growing number of House Republicans are clamoring for Kinzinger and Cheney to face internal consequences for accepting committee seats from Speaker Pelosi.  I guess in their case, political loyalties outweigh loyalty to country.

STOP!!!  This is not an US vs THEM contest!!!  Or is it?  The Democrats … nay, most of the people in this nation … want to know what happened, how it was that our very core of values, of governance, could come so close to toppling.  WE the PEOPLE want to know who, what, why, when, and HOW.  We want to know who in our government colluded, incited, and plotted against the voice of those of us who voted our conscience.  I think we can probably all guess most of them, but I want to see the irrefutable evidence, then I want the Department of Justice to see that they pay the price for their seditious actions.

On Tuesday, the select committee to investigate January 6th held its first hearings.  I haven’t yet watched the entire testimony of the four police officers who were called on to testify, but I have seen enough to break my heart.  In one clip I watched, Representative Cheney said, “You hear former president Trump say, ‘It was a loving crowd.  There was a lot of love in the crowd.’”  And then she asked Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, “How does that make you feel?”  His response …

“To me, it’s insulting, just demoralizing because of everything that we did to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt. And what he was doing, instead of sending the military, instead of sending the support or telling his people, his supporters, to stop this nonsense, he begged them to continue fighting. I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses that day that he claimed.”

Officer Gonell stayed on duty, despite being injured, throughout the night, going home only after the votes were certified, around 4:00 a.m.  Despite pleas by his wife and his doctor, he continued to work for the next fifteen days, until finally his foot became so bad that he couldn’t get a shoe on, and then doctors had to fuse together the broken bones in his foot.  He will also need surgery on his shoulder.  Both of his hands were injured, and he suffered chemical burns on his skin from the spray that was used as a weapon against him.  And yet, he didn’t miss a day’s work.  Why?

“My sense of duty for the country, for the Constitution, at that time was bigger than even my love for my wife and my son.”

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn said one group of rioters, perhaps 20 people, screamed the n-word at him as he was trying to keep them from breaching the House chamber — racial insults he said he had never experienced while in uniform. At the end of that day, he sat down in the Capitol Rotunda and sobbed …

“I became very emotional and began yelling, ’How the (expletive) can something like this happen?’ Is this America? My blood is red. I’m an American citizen. I’m a police officer. I’m a peace officer.

Four officers testified on Tuesday, two Capitol police officers and two officers with the D.C. police force.  One of the D.C. officers was Michael Fanone, who has been vocal about the events of that day … understandably, since he was brutally beaten, thrown down the stairs, tased, and suffered a heart attack, among other injuries.  Officer Fanone was understandably hurt and angry during his testimony and at one point slammed his fist on the table in front of him.…

“What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend are downplaying or outright denying what happened. I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room. Too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.”

I began this post talking about the courage of Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger.  After Tuesday’s testimony by the four officers, Adam Kinzinger was so overcome that he was near tears when he gave a tribute to the officers’ bravery …

“You guys may like individually feel a little broken. You guys all talk about the effects you have to deal with and, you know, you talk about the impact of that day, but you guys won. You guys held. You know, democracies are not defined by our bad days. We`re defined by how we come back from back from bad days.”

This picture tells you all you need to know about Liz Cheney’s reactions to their testimony.

Representative Liz Cheney hugs Officer Dunn after his testimony

We must find out who played a role, no matter how small, in the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, and those people must be removed from Congress, indicted, tried, and imprisoned.  Nothing less is acceptable. Sedition is a serious crime and frankly, we aren’t out of the woods yet, for many are calling January 6th simply a trial run.  As for the Republican’s hateful rhetoric … the press needs to stop covering it.  Full stop.  In reporting Kevin McCarthy’s and Louie Gohmert’s and others’ every word, they are fanning the flames.  We don’t need that.  We don’t give a rat’s ass what they have to say … we’re more interested in getting to the truth.

The Week’s Best Cartoons 7/24

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, education, Environmental Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

I’m just now getting around to sharing TokyoSand’s cartoon post from Saturday … sorry for the delay!  As always she has scoured the Internet and found the cream of the crop!  The topics this week range from the strange Tokyo Olympics to the Republican’s about-face regarding the COVID vaccine to anti-vaxxers and much more!  Thank you, TS, for pulling these together for us!  Here is a sampling …

Be sure to check out the rest of the ‘toons over at Political Charge!

Snarky Snippets Are Baaaaack!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Humour, Political commentary, Social commentary

It’s been a while since I’ve done a snarky snippets post, though in truth almost all of my posts contain an element of snark!  Anyway … I have just a couple of short ones for you this afternoon …

Killing us softly with …

The big news yesterday was that the U.S. has seen a significant drop in life expectancy … the biggest decrease since WWII.  My first thought was … “Well duh.  625,000+ people dead in the U.S. from the pandemic – what do you expect?”  And certainly, the pandemic has played a role in the decline in life expectancy, but it isn’t the only culprit.  Turns out that the ever-expanding income disparity is one of the biggest culprits, and it has been bringing down life expectancy rates for a few years now, even before the pandemic.

During the second half of the 2010s, life expectancy fell on a sustained basis for the first time since the fighting of World War II killed several hundred thousand Americans.

It’s hard to imagine a more alarming sign of a society’s well-being than an inability to keep its citizens alive. While some of the reasons are mysterious, others are fairly clear. American society has become far more unequal than it used to be, and the recent increases in mortality are concentrated among working-class Americans, especially those without a four-year college degree.

For many, daily life lacks the structure, status and meaning that it once had, as the Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have explained. Many people feel less of a connection to an employer, a labor union, a church or community groups. They are less likely to be married. They are more likely to endure chronic pain and to report being unhappy.

These trends have led to a surge of “deaths of despair” (a phrase that Case and Deaton coined), from drugs, alcohol and suicide. Other health problems, including diabetes and strokes, have also surged among the working class. Notably, the class gaps in life expectancy seem to be starker in the U.S. than in most other rich countries.

Covid has also caused sharp increases in racial inequality. As a Times article on the new report explains:

From 2019 to 2020, Hispanic people experienced the greatest drop in life expectancy — three years — and Black Americans saw a decrease of 2.9 years. White Americans experienced the smallest decline, of 1.2 years.

Covid has also killed more men than women, Case and Deaton pointed out, increasing the mortality gap between the sexes, after years in which it had mostly been shrinking. Life expectancy was 5.7 years longer for women last year, up from 5.1 years in 2019. The gap had fallen to a low of 4.8 years in the early 2010s.

The bottom line: Covid has both worsened and exposed a crisis in health inequality. But that crisis existed before Covid and will continue to exist when the pandemic is over – if it ever is.

Spot on!!!

You all know my feelings on rich bastards wasting their money on not-so-cheap thrills like building a rocket ship and flying to the edge of space for no other reason that they can afford to do it.  The latest was Jeff Bezos, and frankly I’m so disgusted with this ‘man’ and his lack of compassion, lack of humility, that I am seriously considering canceling my Amazon account permanently.  Anyway … talk show host Gayle King got the best of him in my view yesterday when she spoke with Bezos on CBS This Morning and she asked him …

“All of you keep saying this is not a competition, and I find that so hard to believe because you’re all type A personalities. Don’t you want to be first? It really to you isn’t a game of whose is bigger? Honestly, it really isn’t?”

I nearly choked with laughter!  Penis-envy run amok!

Filiwhat?  Filiwho?  Filihow?

President Biden made an appearance here in Cincinnati, Ohio yesterday and at the end of the day he participated in a CNN Town Hall along with Don Lemon.  When asked about the filibuster and whether it should be killed off in the Senate, he was far less forceful than I would have liked.

“There’s no reason to protect it other than you’re going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done. Nothing at all will get done.”

WTF???  Nothing at all is getting done now!!!  The Senate Republicans have all but killed the For the People Act, the infrastructure bill, and anything else that might be on the table with their damned filibuster!  Joe did say he wouldn’t mind seeing it altered to the ways of yore, when senators actually had to stand on the floor of the Senate and expound for hours, but let’s face it … the Republicans have enough hot air in them to ramble and rant for days without coming up for air!

Moscow Mitch said WHAT???

You may have noticed that a number of Republicans have been urging people in this country to get the Covid vaccine this week … people like Mitch McConnell, Steve Scalise, and even Fox’ Sean Hannity.  I note we haven’t heard the positive take from the absolutely disgusting Tucker Carlson, but then he marches to the beat of a different drummer, so don’t hold your breath.

I’m not sure what triggered the Republicans’ sudden faux concern for people, but hopefully their constituents listen to them, for as long as we continue to have some 30% of the nation refusing to be vaccinated, we are NOT going to end the pandemic.  Period.  One of my favourite late-night comedians has a humorous take on the newly-discovered consciences that I think will give you a chuckle or two. This is, in my opinion, one of the best Colbert has done!

The GOP Madness … Doing Us A Favour?

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2022, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary

Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of the Republican House members who had been appointed by Kevin McCarthy to sit on the committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection.  The two were Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Burns of Indiana, and Speaker Pelosi was well within her rights to reject them, for both had refused to certify the election results from the 2020 election, though there was no question whatsoever that President Biden had won by more than 7 million votes. Both attempted to stifle our votes, our voices.

McCarthy, who qualifies as one of the head clowns in the GOP circus, went ballistic and pulled the other three, the ones Pelosi had agreed to, off of the committee.  Fine by me, for his only goal was to be disruptive and ensure that the committee would be unable to conduct a full investigation as we need them to.  Why?  Why are Republicans so adamant that we not get to the bottom of an attack that threatened the democratic principles founded in the U.S. Constitution?  Because … they know the role that certain Republicans played in inciting and participating in the events of the day.  Some of those people carry the last name “Trump” and that is already a proven fact!  So, let’s cover it up … bury it so that they don’t have to try to justify their actions, justify their attempt to rob We the People of our voice … so that come November 2022, people will have forgotten the coup that almost was, and those who bear some responsibility for the events won’t have to answer awkward questions that might land them on the other side of the iron bars!

That said, Washington Post columnists Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman have collaborated on a piece that I think worthy of being shared.  For what little my opinion may be worth, I am 100% in agreement with these gentlemen …

How Kevin McCarthy is boosting the integrity of the Jan. 6 investigation

Opinion by Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman

21 July 2021; 5:08 p.m. EDT

We should be thankful that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) just pulled Republicans out of any involvement in the select committee to examine the Jan. 6 insurrection. In so doing, he ensured that the committee’s investigation will both have more integrity and be more likely to undertake a valuable accounting.

Which goes to a larger truth about this moment: Efforts at a real examination of arguably the worst outbreak of political violence in modern times — and efforts to protect our democracy more broadly — will not be bipartisan. These things will be done by Democrats alone.

McCarthy’s handling of the Jan. 6 committee illustrates the point. It comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that she is nixing two of McCarthy’s picks to serve on it: Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

McCarthy mustered great outrage about this, railing that it was an “abuse of power” that had cost the committee “all legitimacy and credibility.”

In fact, precisely the opposite is true: By pulling out, McCarthy has boosted the committee’s legitimacy and credibility immeasurably. The less involved McCarthy is with this committee, the more likely it will be to undertake a genuine and comprehensive accounting.

McCarthy’s picks were expressly designed to prevent that accounting. This is not speculation or a mere guess at McCarthy’s motives. It is unavoidably clear from the public statements and conduct of Banks and Jordan themselves.

Banks’s first act on getting named by McCarthy was to release a statement declaring that the committee must investigate the “hundreds of violent political riots” in which “many more innocent Americans and law-enforcement officers were attacked.”

That’s an explicit declaration that the insurrection and Donald Trump’s incitement of it should not be the focus of the committee and is a less serious matter than those riots.

Similarly, after Jordan was picked, he immediately declared he wants to serve on the committee because “this is impeachment round three,” unwittingly revealing — or perhaps unabashedly declaring — that he saw his role as solely a means for working to exonerate Trump.

What’s more, Jordan had already played a prominent role in spreading the very lies about the 2020 election that helped inspire the insurrection the committee will be investigating. Given that the committee is charged with probing the causes of the violence — and that those lies are a major cause — any real accounting must also implicate Republicans such as Jordan.

On top of all this, remember that McCarthy could have exercised even more control over the investigation — yet declined. Back in May, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the Homeland Security Committee chair, announced an agreement with the ranking Republican on an evenly divided 10-member bipartisan commission, with both parties having veto power over subpoenas.

Guess who voted against that commission? McCarthy, Banks and Jordan did.

All three also voted to object to President Biden’s electors, a vote that represented the culmination of the lies this committee will investigate as a cause of the violence.

There’s another hidden dynamic here, too: McCarthy and Jordan are very likely witnesses themselves. McCarthy made a frantic appeal to Trump to call off the rioters; he likely has firsthand experience of Trump’s truly sociopathic and insurrectionist intentions that day.

And Jordan was present in a Dec. 21 White House meeting with Trump and others, at which they discussed how to overturn Biden’s electors on the day of what would become the insurrection. What was said at that meeting will be of great interest to the committee.

“Anyone who is a material witness to the key events leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection doesn’t really belong on the committee,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the select committee, told us.

“The investigative inquiry is being shaped right now,” Raskin continued, “but those are likely to be key events in the chronology.”

Here’s the bottom line: By nixing Banks and Jordan, Pelosi actually protected the integrity of the committee’s investigation, from their openly advertised intention to misdirect, disrupt and sabotage it. By appointing publicly committed saboteurs, McCarthy openly advertised the same intention.

The conventions of political reporting are such that this basic and obvious truth will not be faithfully rendered in press accounts. But it follows from a straightforward interpretation of the statements and conduct of those Republicans themselves.