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.
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.
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.
A North Texas chief of police blurted something out the other day that caught me by surprise.
I won’t reveal his identity, as he doesn’t know I am writing this, but he sent a chill up my spine when he said it.
He mentioned a conversation he had with a classmate who attended the FBI Academy with him; the classmate is now employed by a D.C.-area police agency. He said “there’s a lot more to the story” behind the Capitol Building insurrection than we’ve been told.
A lot more? I asked. Tell me the rest of the story, I implored the chief. He couldn’t speak candidly with me at that moment, so I let the conversation lapse.
It comports, though, with what is beginning to be reported about theories regarding the source of the riot that erupted after Donald Trump incited the rioters to march on Capitol Hill the morning of Jan. 6. We’re hearing investigations into possible collusion — yep, there’s that word again — between members of Congress and leaders of the mob that had descended on Washington to contest Congress’s constitutional duty to ratify President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.
The House of Representatives, of course, took swift action Wednesday by impeaching Trump for the second time, just a week before he exits the office and clears the way for Joe Biden.
Something tells me — I don’t know what that “something” is — that we might, indeed, learn a lot more than we ever thought we would learn about what transpired immediately prior to the rebellion we witnessed in real time.
Millions of us have seen the videos of the rioters storming into the Capitol Building.
One segment is particularly galling. You see images of rioters beating a Capitol police officer … with a pole attached to Old Glory. Yes! The rioter in that sequence is using the Stars and Stripes itself to bloody and injure a law enforcement officer who was trying to prevent the riot from spilling into the halls of our government.
It is ironic in the tragic extreme.
The mob descended on the Capitol Building at the urging of Donald J. Trump, who now stands set to be impeached a second time on a charge of “inciting an insurrection” against the very government he swore to protect and defend.
Think, too, of the hideous hypocrisy of the terrorists who profess some sort of perverted “love of country” while using the very symbol of our beloved nation as a cudgel to batter public servants who are charged with, um, protecting the public.
This is just one more example of the tragedy that unfolded in real time this past week and why we need to be on guard against those who proclaim faux piety about how much they love our nation.
An editor of mine used to say that “when one person calls you an ass, you blow it off; when many of them say so, then you need to start shopping for a feedbag.”
A lot of Americans these days are calling for the resignations of U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Why? Because they led the Senate’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. They both will couch their intentions behind merely seeking to “ensure the integrity” of the electoral process.
That is a pile of steaming bullsh**. They intended to somehow restore Donald Trump’s political fortunes and return him for a second term as president. Never mind that a majority of Americans endorsed Joe Biden as the next president or that the elections in each of our 50 states and the District of Columbia were conducted under the tightest security in history.
Yeah, these two clowns need to quit. They won’t go anywhere. At least not until someone finds something incriminating about them and can prove it … which is more than Cruz, Hawley and the other vote fraud conspiracy theorists were able to do with their phony allegations of “widespread” corruption of the electoral process.
Both of these nimrods won’t stand for re-election until 2024. They both have earned censure in the Senate, as do the House members who joined them in that moronic effort to subvert our democratic process. Cruz, the Texas Republican, and Hawley, the GOP’er from Missouri, need to be stripped of their committee assignments and sent to the back of the Senate chamber.
Will any of that happen? Oh, probably not. However, enough Americans are calling them asses for what they tried to pull off that they surely have earned the scorn they are receiving.
Donald J. Trump has redefined the term “consequential,” as in he has been a “consequential president” for most of the four years he held the office.
The greatest consequence of the Trump tenure as president is about to occur this week. The U.S. House of Representatives is a lead-pipe cinch to impeach for the second time. To be clear, it appears to be equally certain that this impeachment won’t result in Trump’s removal from office. He’s only got nine days to go before President Biden takes the oath of office.
However, the guy who always wanted to make a name for himself — whether it was in business, in entertainment and now in politics — is going to hit the big time, if you know what I mean.
President Andrew Johnson got impeached and came within a single vote in the Senate of being convicted. President Bill Clinton got impeached and the Senate never came close to convicting him on any of the three articles it considered. Then came Trump’s first impeachment. He, too, skated clear with little to worry. Why? Because the GOP caucus in the Senate — except for Mitt Romney of Utah — lacked the guts to do what needed to be done; Trump needed to be convicted for seeking dirt on Biden from a foreign government.
Now he’s done it! He incited the riot that damaged the Capitol Building. It killed five people, including a D.C. Metro police officer. Trump called for an insurrection against the government. It’s on the record. We all saw him do it. We heard the words. He wanted the mob to prevent Congress from ratifying Biden’s election as president in 2020.
Now the House is going to make history by impeaching Trump a second time. House members will make the case that Trump must be barred from holding any federal office in the future. I am not at all confident they will persuade enough Republican senators to show the courage they need to keep this presidential idiot out of public office for the rest of his life.
But … by golly, Donald Trump has shown himself to be a “consequential president.”
The tragedy that unfolded this week in front of the world must remain at the top of our conscious thoughts for well past the long term. Let’s try … forever!
Donald Trump might be impeached a second time. He might stand trial a second time in the Senate. For all I know he might even be acquitted a second time by gutless Republican senators.
The insurrection we witnessed must not be allowed to be shoved aside. It’s nowhere near possible for us to simply say, “It’s time to move on.” I am one American patriot who intends to keep talking and writing about this until I no longer am able.
Trump will be out of office in 12 days. There isn’t much time to exact justice on this lawless individual. However, the House must clear the deck to get this job done; so must the Senate do its job.
You saw Trump say what he said. He told the mobsters they should storm the Capitol. They did. They damaged the center of our democratic institutions. They ransacked offices. Five people died! One of them was a police officer injured in a melee with rioters.
This is not the kind of tragedy you can place on the back shelf. Let’s not forget about it. Yes, we need to get back to the task of governing. We can do that when President Biden and Vice President Harris take their oaths of office.
But they face a steep hill to climb. It happens to be the mobsters who continue to believe the lies that Trump has fed to them. They will continue to believe in the phony voter fraud allegation. They will insist the election was stolen from their guy. They will continue to present a clear danger to our democratic system.
Let’s not be coy about the possibility — remote as it might seem — that they could do once again what they tried to do Wednesday night at the urging of the president of the United States.
We’re going to have a new president and vice president in office soon. We already have a newly reconstituted Congress. They all must govern effectively. I get that.
However, we also must never forget what we witnessed this week. Not only that, we also must not allow the repercussions of what we are feeling at this moment to subside, to disappear and for us to fill ourselves with any sort of false sense of security that all is good.
