The big story today continues to be the insurrection and the many people now seemingly swept up in the investigation of it. The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol took to the House Rules Committee its resolution to hold Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress. This afternoon, the House Rules Committee voted along party lines by a vote of 8 to 4 to advance the contempt resolution to the House itself.
About 12 years ago, I came to believe that our ruling elite (if you want to call them that) of BOTH parties were content--even preferred--having an American public that is (our favorite phrase in the military) "fat, dumb and happy." Keep gasoline cheap, jack up the internet bandwidth, keep the fatty foods everywhere and affordable, and let the "smart people," run the country. And I consider Democrats--with their reliance on virtue & technocracy until ~2016, just as complicit in that. Well, this is just one, logical result of that attitude, courtesy of our perpetual disengagement for want of more satisfying things. Because, as is usually the case, the REAL culprit is We The People. We didn't immediately fall for the next Hitler or Stalin, no. We fell for the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys--but also Rachel Madows--who told us, 24/7 for 2 decades without pause, what and how to think. Meanwhile, while we get our panties in a bunch about boogiemen like the NSA "tapping our phones," we gladly handed over every aspect of our privacy to Google and Facebook (both of whom collect, literally 1000X more personal data than the NSA could if it wanted to)...and now, they influence our lives FAR more than we even realize...and then we shrug our shoulders and don't care anyway. Because they didn't bully us--they appealed to our insatiable lust for comfort, convenience, "stuff." Sure, they kinda LIED to us about how they were doing it, but once the truth came out, we did startlingly little to change it. Because we still don't freaking CARE. And it's all of us. It just so happens that, The Right, being more desperate, got more inventive & outlandish in how they exploited it. This time. But we're still marvelously nonchalant about all of it when it comes to DOING anything. Shrieking does not count as action, despite what people might imagine.
Even now, with all that's happened, we still anticipate the voter turnout (at least for Democrats) will be LESS next year than it was last year. This seems unfathomable, if not criminal. We are the civilian equivalent of the 2021-2 Boston Celtics (it's a Boston/sports thing. Trust me, this isn't a favorable metaphor)--looking to do the minimum possible to make our own lives comfy, surely distracted by emotions and histrionics of the moment, but also still fully prepared to do close-to-nothing about it when it matters, even declare it's hopeless if necessary--just don't make me DO anything. We seem to want to be France in 1939--bent on letting ourselves descend ALL the way into hell before we get serious about it (psychologically, if not also physically--Camus wrote of this, quite eloquently and succinctly). EXACTLY as our leaders want it (well, unless they want an insurrection--then, for sure, they want you). The way out of this is simple: normal people finding the time and priority to freaking VOTE. Vote, dammit--if you don't (I'm not talking about anyone who has unjustly been denied. I'm talking about those who choose not to) vote, I have NO use for you, period. Do that, and I don't care how rigged these GOP fascists make it, they will still lose most of the time--because they can muster 40% of us on their best days. Because we are right (good or bad) because, as Heather noted, MOST OF US DON'T BELIEVE IN THAT CRAP. So, make it right: Vote, vote, VOTE--make it a Top 3 priority in your life...because, yeah, your life MIGHT depend on it--if not now, then surely coming soon. Heather is not exaggerating the stakes.
As was pointed out on MSNBC tonight, the January 6 Committee is now focused on Trump as a felon for obstructing the operation of Congress in its constitutional responsibilities. Liz Cheney used the exact words from the statute defining the crime in stating what they are now looking at Trump and his fellow conspirators in and out of Congress for committing.
Dear Professor Cox Richardson, a slight correction, from the NYTimes: " Judge McFadden, however, stayed his ruling for 10 days to give Mr. Trump time to file an appeal, which he is very likely to do."
I continue to be shocked and disgusted as the GOP traitors' words from January 6th leak out like pus from a festering political wound to our nation.
Today I phoned Liz Cheney's office in Cheyenne, and asked her staffer to thank her for her bravery in standing up to the Trumplican GOP, her patriotism, and her work on the January 6th Commission. To write that I never thought I would be this grateful to a member of the Cheney family would be an understatement.
Bless you, and bless your work. Thank you from the bottom of my lifelong Democratic heart.
If this were 1973, the entire nation would be glued to their televisions watching the hearings. Now, though, half the country allows their anointed gatekeepers - Fox, OANN, Newsmax - to decide whether they should even be exposed to the news that key people in at least two of the three branches of their government, including the President, actively conspired to keep power in the face of an election that went against them.
An effective Democratic National Committee would be collecting all this news and turning it into devastating ads for the 2022 elections. It is imperative that we get as many people as possible to clearly state - in the voting booth - that the people's voice is important in this country, and to leave no doubt about where the majority sits.
The Republicans, of course, are plowing ahead with their strategy, still conspiring to make sure their efforts succeed next time. We can only hope that the Senate finds a way to pass voting rights legislation before the 2022 election, or we won't have to worry about representative government in this country again in our lifetimes.
Per usual, I have enjoyed my morning coffee and read both this letter and the comments (numbering, at this moment, 141 in the 7 hours since this was posted). We are indeed living through a time that is as perilous to our unified country as the period leading up to the Civil War. What really sticks in my mind this morning is this, from the Letter:
"That is, a Republican member of Congress wanted Republican-dominated state legislatures not even to wait to see who had won the election—none of those states had been called by November 4—but simply to ignore the will of the voters, choose their own electors, and hope that the Supreme Court would hand the election to Trump as he had been saying for weeks it would." Followed by this: "Our democracy is at stake. In the Declaration of Independence, this nation’s Founders declared it “self-evident” that governments are legitimate only if those they govern consent to them. If lawmakers take it upon themselves to ignore the will of the voters and themselves decide who will hold power, we will have lost the ability to consent to our government. And that government will be far more extremist than polls suggest the vast majority of us want."
A sitting member of Congress, elected to that body, advocating overthrow of a lawful election. That cannot go unadjudicated.
"We are all watching what is unfolding on the House side,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said today, “and it will be interesting to reveal all of the participants that were involved."
Typical McConnell. He relishes being rid of Trump et al, but refuses to lift a finger - leaving Democrats to do the heavy lifting, while hurling brickbats at them.
Before Trump's mob sacked the Capitol to impose their will, McConnell had shredded the Constitution to impose his. Sins of Omission and Sins of Commission.
Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust and coming of age in the activism of the 1960s, I feel that I've spent a lifetime protesting the too easy identifications of various oppressions with Nazism. But McConnell calls to mind Hannah Arendt's notes on Eichmann: Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all… He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period.
I hold all 208 Repugs who voted against holding Meadows "in contempt of Congress" guilty of treason for their support of the insurrection and its aiders and abettors -- that includes all senators who, thus far, have NOT proclaimed their outrage against apostate Meadows and his ilk!
Without Heather and all of you, I would be an island of one. You and my arts groups here in Spain are the only reason I am on FB anymore. When I posted these truths, no one replies. It is as though those who were all ¨Blue Wave¨ only want recipes and photos of kittens. This group is my anchor with sanity.
My wish was that today they had included the time stamps on the increasingly frantic text messages sent to Meadows from the Fox newscasters and Trump Jr. I think it would have been even more starling reinforcement of how utterly delighted Trump was at the chaos as it got worse.
I won’t live long enough to tell the babies & unborn about this period in our history. Thankfully there will be works from Professor Richardson to take my place. Thank You!!!
The burning of the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, took place four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler's government stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators. Later, Hitler's general Hermann Göring bragged that he himself set the fire.
Note that Trump precedes any mention of Democrats with "communist."
I'm so thankful for Heather's focus on the GOP voting-rights suppression efforts underway. We need all the sunlight we can shine on the GOP's attempts to undermine free and fair elections. This unidentified member of Congress texting "let's target the states that didn't announce their election results on election night" is dangerous. As an election officer, I can affirm that the vote totals are announced when ALL the votes have been counted! Believe me, I'd rather be home right after the polls close, kicking back with a glass of wine after a 15-hour day. But we take an oath to finish the job, and sometimes it takes time to close out the equipment, cross-check the results, call in the results, and hand-deliver/escort the sealed boxes of voted ballots to the central elections office. Good on Senator Warnock for pursuing Voting Rights legislation so publicly and persistently. Let people vote, for heaven's sake. What are they afraid of - democracy?
Just a side note. Kentucky has been ravaged by the recent devastating tornadoes, so why is Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) nowhere to be seen on the ground showing some degree of compassion for those crushed and in mourning. Is the honorable senator from Kentucky taking a "Cancun break"?
Yesterday, on Heather's FB politics talk, she repeated Bill McKibben's words "don't be an individual" (when he was asked: "what can I do as an individual?") i.e. join a movement. I hope our group here is a movement and that we can support the effort to save our democracy.
Two days ago, I finally told GMA Video to cancel my subscription since they won't separate the bundle that includes FNC. I wrote to the CEO (twice) to tell him that I protested their support of a dangerous propaganda machine and he responded "we have to give the people what they want". It means that I can't see PBS any more, some of the content I really like, but I am sick of Judy Woodruff's negativity on the Newshour. I will continue to get my news from the internet, and clarity from Heather!
The texts are stunning. For one moment imagine any of this was from Black Lives Matter or Occupy. Members of Congress involved should be charged with treason as well as the rest of the lynch mob.
About 12 years ago, I came to believe that our ruling elite (if you want to call them that) of BOTH parties were content--even preferred--having an American public that is (our favorite phrase in the military) "fat, dumb and happy." Keep gasoline cheap, jack up the internet bandwidth, keep the fatty foods everywhere and affordable, and let the "smart people," run the country. And I consider Democrats--with their reliance on virtue & technocracy until ~2016, just as complicit in that. Well, this is just one, logical result of that attitude, courtesy of our perpetual disengagement for want of more satisfying things. Because, as is usually the case, the REAL culprit is We The People. We didn't immediately fall for the next Hitler or Stalin, no. We fell for the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys--but also Rachel Madows--who told us, 24/7 for 2 decades without pause, what and how to think. Meanwhile, while we get our panties in a bunch about boogiemen like the NSA "tapping our phones," we gladly handed over every aspect of our privacy to Google and Facebook (both of whom collect, literally 1000X more personal data than the NSA could if it wanted to)...and now, they influence our lives FAR more than we even realize...and then we shrug our shoulders and don't care anyway. Because they didn't bully us--they appealed to our insatiable lust for comfort, convenience, "stuff." Sure, they kinda LIED to us about how they were doing it, but once the truth came out, we did startlingly little to change it. Because we still don't freaking CARE. And it's all of us. It just so happens that, The Right, being more desperate, got more inventive & outlandish in how they exploited it. This time. But we're still marvelously nonchalant about all of it when it comes to DOING anything. Shrieking does not count as action, despite what people might imagine.
Even now, with all that's happened, we still anticipate the voter turnout (at least for Democrats) will be LESS next year than it was last year. This seems unfathomable, if not criminal. We are the civilian equivalent of the 2021-2 Boston Celtics (it's a Boston/sports thing. Trust me, this isn't a favorable metaphor)--looking to do the minimum possible to make our own lives comfy, surely distracted by emotions and histrionics of the moment, but also still fully prepared to do close-to-nothing about it when it matters, even declare it's hopeless if necessary--just don't make me DO anything. We seem to want to be France in 1939--bent on letting ourselves descend ALL the way into hell before we get serious about it (psychologically, if not also physically--Camus wrote of this, quite eloquently and succinctly). EXACTLY as our leaders want it (well, unless they want an insurrection--then, for sure, they want you). The way out of this is simple: normal people finding the time and priority to freaking VOTE. Vote, dammit--if you don't (I'm not talking about anyone who has unjustly been denied. I'm talking about those who choose not to) vote, I have NO use for you, period. Do that, and I don't care how rigged these GOP fascists make it, they will still lose most of the time--because they can muster 40% of us on their best days. Because we are right (good or bad) because, as Heather noted, MOST OF US DON'T BELIEVE IN THAT CRAP. So, make it right: Vote, vote, VOTE--make it a Top 3 priority in your life...because, yeah, your life MIGHT depend on it--if not now, then surely coming soon. Heather is not exaggerating the stakes.
As was pointed out on MSNBC tonight, the January 6 Committee is now focused on Trump as a felon for obstructing the operation of Congress in its constitutional responsibilities. Liz Cheney used the exact words from the statute defining the crime in stating what they are now looking at Trump and his fellow conspirators in and out of Congress for committing.
Dear Professor Cox Richardson, a slight correction, from the NYTimes: " Judge McFadden, however, stayed his ruling for 10 days to give Mr. Trump time to file an appeal, which he is very likely to do."
I continue to be shocked and disgusted as the GOP traitors' words from January 6th leak out like pus from a festering political wound to our nation.
Today I phoned Liz Cheney's office in Cheyenne, and asked her staffer to thank her for her bravery in standing up to the Trumplican GOP, her patriotism, and her work on the January 6th Commission. To write that I never thought I would be this grateful to a member of the Cheney family would be an understatement.
Bless you, and bless your work. Thank you from the bottom of my lifelong Democratic heart.
If this were 1973, the entire nation would be glued to their televisions watching the hearings. Now, though, half the country allows their anointed gatekeepers - Fox, OANN, Newsmax - to decide whether they should even be exposed to the news that key people in at least two of the three branches of their government, including the President, actively conspired to keep power in the face of an election that went against them.
An effective Democratic National Committee would be collecting all this news and turning it into devastating ads for the 2022 elections. It is imperative that we get as many people as possible to clearly state - in the voting booth - that the people's voice is important in this country, and to leave no doubt about where the majority sits.
The Republicans, of course, are plowing ahead with their strategy, still conspiring to make sure their efforts succeed next time. We can only hope that the Senate finds a way to pass voting rights legislation before the 2022 election, or we won't have to worry about representative government in this country again in our lifetimes.
Amen, to Warnock and his wondrous speech today! Cheers to Liz Cheney and the Jan 6 committee. There is hope.
Gratitude to you, Heather, for your brave and courageous work! Perilous times and yet...we work towards a better, cleaner democracy.
Per usual, I have enjoyed my morning coffee and read both this letter and the comments (numbering, at this moment, 141 in the 7 hours since this was posted). We are indeed living through a time that is as perilous to our unified country as the period leading up to the Civil War. What really sticks in my mind this morning is this, from the Letter:
"That is, a Republican member of Congress wanted Republican-dominated state legislatures not even to wait to see who had won the election—none of those states had been called by November 4—but simply to ignore the will of the voters, choose their own electors, and hope that the Supreme Court would hand the election to Trump as he had been saying for weeks it would." Followed by this: "Our democracy is at stake. In the Declaration of Independence, this nation’s Founders declared it “self-evident” that governments are legitimate only if those they govern consent to them. If lawmakers take it upon themselves to ignore the will of the voters and themselves decide who will hold power, we will have lost the ability to consent to our government. And that government will be far more extremist than polls suggest the vast majority of us want."
A sitting member of Congress, elected to that body, advocating overthrow of a lawful election. That cannot go unadjudicated.
"We are all watching what is unfolding on the House side,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said today, “and it will be interesting to reveal all of the participants that were involved."
Typical McConnell. He relishes being rid of Trump et al, but refuses to lift a finger - leaving Democrats to do the heavy lifting, while hurling brickbats at them.
Before Trump's mob sacked the Capitol to impose their will, McConnell had shredded the Constitution to impose his. Sins of Omission and Sins of Commission.
Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust and coming of age in the activism of the 1960s, I feel that I've spent a lifetime protesting the too easy identifications of various oppressions with Nazism. But McConnell calls to mind Hannah Arendt's notes on Eichmann: Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all… He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period.
I hold all 208 Repugs who voted against holding Meadows "in contempt of Congress" guilty of treason for their support of the insurrection and its aiders and abettors -- that includes all senators who, thus far, have NOT proclaimed their outrage against apostate Meadows and his ilk!
Without Heather and all of you, I would be an island of one. You and my arts groups here in Spain are the only reason I am on FB anymore. When I posted these truths, no one replies. It is as though those who were all ¨Blue Wave¨ only want recipes and photos of kittens. This group is my anchor with sanity.
My wish was that today they had included the time stamps on the increasingly frantic text messages sent to Meadows from the Fox newscasters and Trump Jr. I think it would have been even more starling reinforcement of how utterly delighted Trump was at the chaos as it got worse.
I won’t live long enough to tell the babies & unborn about this period in our history. Thankfully there will be works from Professor Richardson to take my place. Thank You!!!
The burning of the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, took place four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler's government stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators. Later, Hitler's general Hermann Göring bragged that he himself set the fire.
Note that Trump precedes any mention of Democrats with "communist."
I'm so thankful for Heather's focus on the GOP voting-rights suppression efforts underway. We need all the sunlight we can shine on the GOP's attempts to undermine free and fair elections. This unidentified member of Congress texting "let's target the states that didn't announce their election results on election night" is dangerous. As an election officer, I can affirm that the vote totals are announced when ALL the votes have been counted! Believe me, I'd rather be home right after the polls close, kicking back with a glass of wine after a 15-hour day. But we take an oath to finish the job, and sometimes it takes time to close out the equipment, cross-check the results, call in the results, and hand-deliver/escort the sealed boxes of voted ballots to the central elections office. Good on Senator Warnock for pursuing Voting Rights legislation so publicly and persistently. Let people vote, for heaven's sake. What are they afraid of - democracy?
Just a side note. Kentucky has been ravaged by the recent devastating tornadoes, so why is Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) nowhere to be seen on the ground showing some degree of compassion for those crushed and in mourning. Is the honorable senator from Kentucky taking a "Cancun break"?
Yesterday, on Heather's FB politics talk, she repeated Bill McKibben's words "don't be an individual" (when he was asked: "what can I do as an individual?") i.e. join a movement. I hope our group here is a movement and that we can support the effort to save our democracy.
Two days ago, I finally told GMA Video to cancel my subscription since they won't separate the bundle that includes FNC. I wrote to the CEO (twice) to tell him that I protested their support of a dangerous propaganda machine and he responded "we have to give the people what they want". It means that I can't see PBS any more, some of the content I really like, but I am sick of Judy Woodruff's negativity on the Newshour. I will continue to get my news from the internet, and clarity from Heather!
The texts are stunning. For one moment imagine any of this was from Black Lives Matter or Occupy. Members of Congress involved should be charged with treason as well as the rest of the lynch mob.