The hits just keep coming from the wreckage of what transpired on Capitol Hill.
The rioters stormed the nation’s seat of government. They intended to disrupt the constitutional proceedings under way, which was to certify Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States.
Oh, but that’s not the whole story … allegedly.
Federal prosecutors have issued a memo that suggests that one of the more notable rioters, a terrorist who was dressed in buffalo skins and was wearing a horned helmet and face paint, intended to “capture and assassinate elected officials” during the riot.
This moron’s lawyers want him released from jail on bail. The prosecutors are arguing against that notion.
Oh, my. This requires a deep, thorough and exhaustive probe into what the hell went on, why it occurred, who directed it.
It ain’t over, folks. Not by a country mile.
Good grief! We all issued a hearty and vocal “good riddance” to 2020. From my perch in North Texas, 2021 isn’t starting off too well.
You may choose to believe this or … disbelieve it. Makes no difference to me.
I had hoped to be done, finished with Donald J. Trump the moment President Biden took office. Biden will take office next week and for that I remain hopeful for a new day.
Sadly, none of us will be finished with Trump just yet. You see, we have this impeachment trial to follow and to assess as it convenes and progresses for the time it takes to render a decision on Trump’s culpability in the hideous attack on Capitol Hill that occurred Jan. 6.
Senators will debate openly about the evidence that the House of Representatives prosecutors will present them. I don’t know what the debate will entail precisely or the extent to which Trump’s defense team will be able to, um, defend what I consider to be the indefensible.
However, Donald Trump will remain the focus of this important debate and, dammit anyway, he will remain in our sights even as we move on to watching and commenting on the Biden administration.
The scuttlebutt now concerns whether there might be 17 Republican senators serving in a Senate that is split 50-50 on party lines who will deliver guilty verdicts on whether Trump committed “incitement of insurrection” against the U.S. government. The Constitution sets the bar high for conviction of a president; it requires a two-thirds vote among senators.
I can think right now of roughly four, maybe five, senators who can cross over and join the Democrats. One of them might include the Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who has endorsed the House impeachment; he remains mum on how he intends to vote.
Again … this is all about Donald Trump. I suppose at one bizarre level he likes it that way, given that he remains at the center of attention, unwanted as it might appear to be.
The Chaos President is living up to his unofficial title.
Donald Trump is now five days away from being relieved of his title as president of the United States. It cannot come a moment too soon. Frankly, I wish he had left after a Senate conviction on his first impeachment but it wasn’t meant to be.
He is about to leave and the media are tripping over themselves trying to cover his imminent departure.
Chaos … anyone?
The House of Representatives has impeached Trump a second time. The legal eagles who defended him the first time are bolting. He is left now to be defended reportedly by Rudy Giuliani who — if reports are accurate — isn’t being paid for the work he has done already for the embattled, embittered and disgraced president. But seriously, how does one defend the indefensible, inciting a riot in the halls of our democratic system of government?
As for the rest of the White House, only the closest aides — comprising family members mostly — remain on duty. Trump has been closeted somewhere in the WH residence, having been deprived of his Twitter fetish.
Still, the media wonder. Where is Donald and what on Earth will he do once he’s out of office?
Take a long look at the picture contained in this brief blog post and I fear you are going to presume that this is the look of the new America.
It came to my Facebook page via Nancy Seliger, whose husband — Kel Seliger — reported for duty the other day as a state senator serving in the Texas Legislature.
The heavily armed individuals you see are on guard against potential violence at the Texas Capitol Building in Austin, where 181 members of our Legislature are meeting for the next 140 days to enact laws that govern us.
The riot that erupted Jan. 6 in D.C.? The one that killed five people and damaged the nation’s Capitol Building? The attack on our democratic system of government?
The terrorists who conducted that calamitous attack are vowing more of the same at capitols across the nation. That includes ours in Austin, ladies and gents. Thus, we have heavily armed security personnel on guard.
This is disgusting, reprehensible and is a vile statement of the nature of our political discourse in the Age of Donald Trump. Thankfully and not a moment too soon, that age is about to end. Trump will be gone from the White House.
I am saddened to presume that the anger he stoked for four years isn’t likely to subside just because Trump is no longer in power. Oh, how I hope to be wrong on this matter, but my fears continue to be fueled by FBI reports of alarm bells sounding. They could be hailing further spasms of uncontrolled violence.
Just as 9/11 spawned a new era of travel in this country and around the world, I fear that the Jan. 6 attack on our democratic system has produced a new era that requires such deterrence against those who would take political protest to these deadly extremes.
It might be just me, but I am finding Donald Trump’s expulsion from Twitter to be a Godsend.
He isn’t blasting out incoherent policy pronouncements, or hurling insults at Democrats and Republicans, or bullying people who cannot defend themselves against the head of state, or calling the media and others the “enemy of the people.”
Isn’t it great that he has been denied all this? Well, I believe it is.
I also believe that he hasn’t been denied a single tiny bit of his First Amendment liberty. He can still issue policy statements. He can still rant and spew on TV. Trump can still make an ass of himself and he can still lie through his teeth about how he has done a “fantastic” job in fighting the COVID pandemic.
The Twitter storm? It’s calm out there. It’s grand!
You know, the more I see videos of that calamitous riot on Capitol Hill the other day, the worse it looks to my eyes each time I see it.
At this rate, the riot launched by terrorists against the federal government might take its place with the 9/11 videos we all have watched for nearly 20 years. That is to say that the 9/11 images are virtually unwatchable for me.
I have difficulty watching the planes fly into the World Trade Center without — at a minimum — swallowing hard as I fight back tears of grief.
So it might be as we seek to digest what happened on Jan. 6.
The terrorists gathered on The Ellipse in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump stood before them and said they needed to take back the country. Don Trump Jr. urged them to get violent if need be. The man formerly known as America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, said it was time for “trial by combat”; indeed, it is ironic that Giuliani, who once captured the nation’s imagination with his strength post-9/11 has now been reduced to this caricature of a lawyer.
I watch the videos daily on the news, given that as a retired guy I spend a lot of my time watching TV news and trying to stay current with issues of the day.
The images of that insurrection are making me sick to my gut. It doesn’t get any easier to watch them and learn more about what law enforcement authorities are revealing about the events that preceded the deadly riot.
My head is spinning, but my heart is, oh, filling ever-so slowly with hope for a better day.
Donald Trump is six days from exiting the nation’s most glorious, exalted and powerful public office. Joe Biden will take the oath and along with Kamala Harris will start the task of rebuilding what Trump has damaged.
Trump supporters keep yammering about the need now to “unify” the nation rather than put the impeached president on trial in the Senate. Two thoughts cross my mind on that matter.
First, unification will arrive when we hear the evidence produced for senators to consider. The entire nation should be unified in its outrage over the sight and sound of Trump fomenting the riot that damaged Capitol Hill, the Capitol Building, put our elected representatives in peril and threatened the very core of our democratic system of government.
Trump will be gone when the Senate gets down to brass tacks and starts hearing the evidence. It is there for all of us to see.
Second is my belief that the Trumpkin Corps should have called for “unity” when their man — Trump — kept telling the bald-faced lie about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Let’s be clear: The entire insurrection effort was built on a lie that came from Donald Trump’s mouth. For his frothing, fervent and fanatical followers to say now it is time for unity is to pretend that the Big Lie doesn’t exist.
I am saddened to realize that the Big Lie will live far beyond Trump’s time in the public spotlight. That’s how conspiracy theories exist in the first place. Those who adhere to the Big Lie will continue to gin up anger where they can find it. Their success in producing more violence, such as what we saw this past week, will depend on whether enough of us call them out for what they are: lying cowards.
I will continue to believe that this anger will subside eventually, which of course could mean anything you want it to mean. It might tamp down soon, in the medium term or it might take years or — God forbid! — decades to vanish.
Donald Trump’s post-election behavior, culminating in the riot and the impeachment, has cemented his place in history. Whether he survives another Senate trial is moot. He will be forever scorned as a failed president who sought to destroy the very government he took an oath to protect.
Americans are getting an advance look at the difference in style between Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden.
Trump is leaving the presidency under an air of chaos, confusion, controversy. Biden is preparing to enter the presidency with a cool, calm, collected approach to governing.
Thus, I do believe we are going to be able to rest assured that President Biden will continue this approach as he takes the oath and gets to work on trying to grapple with the myriad problems that await him.
Trump never got his arms around the government. He never understood the compromise needed to legislate, or how to cajole those on the other side. He flew blindly the entire way. Trump used his now-defunct Twitter account to make key policy decisions, to fire Cabinet officials, to tell Americans directly what was on his mind in the moment.
Biden isn’t likely to use that social medium to the degree his immediate predecessor did. Which is fine by me!
What’s more, as Trump prepares to exit the White House, he does so as a two-time impeached president. Trump’s coterie of advisers is shrinking, frightened by his reportedly erratic and outrageous behavior.
Biden is preparing to grasp the reins of power like the cool customer he has taught himself to be. I mean, he has all those decades of government experience under his belt. President-elect Biden is a man of the U.S. Senate, where he worked for 36 years before becoming vice president during President Obama’s two successful terms in office.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is making yet another dubious argument that requires a comment from, oh, this blog.
Paxton’s legal team is arguing that as an elected official he is exempt from being held accountable for a whistleblower allegation that he has broken several laws in the conduct of his public office.
As the Texas Tribune reports: The Texas attorney general’s office is attempting to fight off efforts by four former aides to take depositions and issue subpoenas in their lawsuit claiming they were illegally fired after telling authorities they believed Attorney General Ken Paxton was breaking the law.
The agency is arguing that Paxton is “not a public employee,” and thus the office cannot be sued under the Texas Whistleblower Act, which aims to protect government workers from retaliation when they report superiors for breaking the law.
I beg to differ. Strenuously, actually. You see, the attorney general draws his salary from the public trough. Who provides the money for that salary? We do! You and I pay that money. That means the attorney general is a “public employee.”
He works for us!
Also, from the Texas Tribune: Four former Paxton aides claim they were fired in retaliation for telling authorities they believed Paxton had done illegal favors for a political donor, Austin real estate investor Nate Paul. The whistleblowers’ allegations have reportedly sparked an FBI investigation.
Ken Paxton ought to resign as attorney general. He needs to free the public office from the embarrassment he brings to it … and to those of us who pay his salary!
Lindsey Graham, arguably Donald Trump’s most loyal U.S. Senate toadie, said impeaching Trump could “divide” the country even more and — I love this part! — could “destroy the Republican Party.”
I have news for the South Carolinian: The Republican Party already is badly damaged and well might be destroyed … thanks to the cult of personality planted and nurtured by Donald Trump.
Good ever-lovin’ almighty God in heaven! Graham himself has become suckered, snookered and snowed by Trump. Back when Graham was competing against Trump for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, he called Trump everything but the spawn of Satan. He was “unfit” for public office, Graham said, and he was right!
Then the carnival barker got elected president and Graham climbed aboard the Trump clown car parade.
The Republican Party would be “destroyed” by impeaching Trump? is this clown serious?
The Senate will put Trump on trial a second time in due course. He’ll be out of office and gone for good from the White House. The very structure of the Grand Old Party, I hasten to add, is just one of the many collateral casualties felled by this individual’s toxic tenure as president.
A party that once stood for fiscal prudence, taking a hard line against dictators and offering itself as a “big tent” organization has been plowed asunder by the self-serving designs of Donald Trump.
Get a grip, Sen. Graham. The party you once knew — what we all knew — appears headed for the trash heap unless it finds a way to rebuild itself into a responsible political organization.
Lindsey Graham can thank only Donald Trump and those — such as Graham himself — who bought into this con man’s lie for the damage that has been done to the once-great political party.
