Why We Must Not Forget January 6

 

We mark the 6-month anniversary in one of the most fateful days and arguably the most disgraceful day in U.S. history. It was a chilly, breezy and sunny day in Washington D.C. when the outgoing president Donald Trump who had been defeated just two months ago in a free and secure election, had assembled a large gathering of thousands at the Ellipse near the White House. 

He used his then Twitter account to summon his supporters on this day aided by his sycophantic megaphones at Fox News and other pseudo-journalistic outlets as well as social media for this rally that is centered on “the big lie,” which states absence of any evidence that the election had been stolen from Trump primarily because of fraudulent votes. He promised the event would be “wild,” an unusual description for merely a speech and rally.

That dangerous and disgusting lie had been disproven and debunked by some 60 courts around the county including the Supreme Court as well as state election officials who tallied the votes over again and certified the election as clean.

Were these Democratic activist judges as Republicans often describe jurists when things don’t go their way? No. Most of them were Republican appointees thanks to the shenanigans of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and many, if not most, were Trump appointees.

Nonetheless, the lie continued and is alive today with at least half of the people who identify as Republican believing such bubkas.

At his rambling, fact-averse, grievance-laden speech, Trump, a mentally unstable man who cannot accept defeat much less failure, marveled at the expanse of the crowd that included not just his supporters but violent far right white nationalist groups and self-appointed militias.

While he never explicitly ordered the crowd to breach the Capitol where the election’s votes were being certified by both houses of Congress and presided by Vice President Mike Pence, his droning soliloquy amped up the already highly-charged masses to a dangerous froth. The match had already been lit; his speech simply added the fuel.

“Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated…We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” What else could he mean?

We are all familiar with the carnage that ensued. Five deaths, hundreds of undermanned police injured, millions of dollars in damage to our sacred seat of democracy. The very same people who revere the police and who use the “blue lives matter” mantra constantly to counter legitimate protest for social justice especially in policing, had no problems shoving Trump flagpoles in the faces of police officers and using other weapons including chemical spray on those who were attempting to guard our house. That’s right, OUR house.

The rampage continued for hours with the chants “Hang Mike Pence”  and “Where are you Nancy?” were clearly audible in the numerous video clips that surfaced.

The riots, the insurrection was a violent attempt to prevent the certification of the ballot as laid out in our Constitution. This was not a protest of the election results. These thugs in which Federal authorities have already charged 500 and counting on various offenses, sought to forcibly stop Congress from doing its duty. In other words, it was a violent effort to overturn the election.

Democrats rushed to impeach Trump for a second time and presented a compelling case in the Senate. All Democrats agreed to convict the lame duck president; seven Republicans who paid a steep political price later did the same. By a vote of 57 to 43, a substantial margin by any measure, these Senators agreed Trump was culpable. Only the Constitution requiring 67 votes to convict thwarted that outcome.

December 7, September 11 and now January 6—Days of Infamy all—must be remembered as blights on our history and the American people. Republicans are feverishly attempting to minimize the effect of January 6 from denying the severity to minimizing its significance calling the insurrectionists tourists.  

They succeeded in stopping the formation of a bipartisan commission to look into the full scope of what happened, how it happened, why Trump did nothing to quell it after it started, how such a travesty could be prevented in the future.

They don’t want any of that. They don’t want the truth to come out, which would surely highlight their cult leader Donald Trump’s role.

The Department of Justice should be looking into Trump’s role as they would probe deeply had there been a foreign terrorist attack on our country. They’re not as far as I know.

This cowardly disgrace must be remembered no matter how many people wind up in prison. Democrats need to not allow the Republicans to sweep it under the rug. This was an attack on our soil by Americans, not foreign actors.

All the more reason we should never forget. The further the ship sails away from the dock, the smaller the lights appear on the shore.

Trump referred to this horrific event as a "love fest" by "tremendous people. Check this out:

King Insane

Full disclosure: I am not a psychiatrist or a trained psychologist, but I did fairly well in my Psych courses in college. One of those was Abnormal Psychology, and I can pretty much say that had there been a President Donald Trump then, his case studies would have appeared on many of the pages of those text books.

We are all too familiar with his pathological lying, extreme narcissism and need to command attention. Yet, Trump’s problems go beyond these character disorders. To use New York parlance, this man is sick in da head. Or using the more medical  NY term, Meshuggeneh.

Throughout his life, whether he loses a lawsuit or an election, whatever it is, it must have been rigged. He was saying this ahead of the 2016 election and, of course, the recent 2020 election. When it became clear he had indeed lost in November and Joe Biden was deemed to be the President-elect, Trump’s nuttiness when into high gear.

Breaking with traditional norms, he refused to concede the election though Biden’s Electoral College votes matched Trump’s from 2016 and won the popular vote by 7 million. (If you’re a Trump supporter and do not believe 7 million is a significant total, start counting from 1 to 7 million and when you’re finished, you may resume reading this.)

Throughout these past two months, Trump refused to accept the reality that he lost. His claims of widespread voter fraud, irregularities, voting machines tampering, ballot shredding, ballot dumping, and dead people voting were baseless and without evidence. Undaunted, his crack legal team, headed by Rudy “Colludy” Giuliani, tried to litigate these false allegations and failed miserably to make the case in court some 60 times (including the Supreme Court twice) involving 90 judges with many having been appointed by Republicans and Trump himself.

The problem is Trump actually believed his delusional alternate reality. He has convinced himself that he actually won the election in a landslide (“Everybody knows it”), and it was stolen from him.

The past several days revealed how psychotic Trump is. Using the same unfounded claims, a recorded rambling phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger revealed that Trump most likely broke the law by threatening the Republican official to conjure up additional votes to overturn the state’s already certified tallies and call it a “recalculation.”

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump said.  He was asking this official to come up with new totals to give him the edge and reminded him by not reporting the “voting irregularities” he was subjecting himself to criminal exposure.

Except the one who has criminal exposure for this election interference and tampering is Trump. It will be up to the District Attorney of Fulton County to pursue this.

If that wasn’t enough, Trump held a rally in D.C. on January 6 where he espoused the same falsehoods. This ego-satisfying event had been announced weeks before and he predicted it would be “wild.” Thousands listened to the likes of Trump, Rudy Colludy Giuliani, Donald, Jr. Ivanka and others as they worked the crowd up to a boiling point.

They received their marching orders. “We are going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, congressmen and women. And we are probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you will never take back our country with weakness.”

Frothing at the mouth from the Trump lies and his attacking his sycophant-in-chief VP Mike Pence for not breaking the law in his behalf, this mob of terrorists, illegally breached the U.S. Capitol, defaced and desecrated offices and statues, looted and forced the members of Congress and senators to shelter in place or be evacuated for hours until the late-arriving security squads cleaned out the buildings from these scumbags and the stain they left on America’s democracy and reputation.

What I personally found egregious was a Trump supporter replacing an American flag with a Trump flag on one of the balconies.  Taking down the American flag and replacing it with a Trump flag.  Let that sink in. These are the same people who went nuts when pro football players took a knee during the playing of the national anthem to protest social injustice.  America First? Not so much in this case. Trump First instead. What a disgrace!

And look at the way these right-wing thugs were treated so deferentially by law enforcement compared to the way Black Lives Matter protesters were handled.

Seeing that the media coverage was not too favorable to Trump for his inciting the rioters and under pressure from advisors, the smirking psycho president released a video whereby he asked the terrorists to go home but reminded them that their actions were justified because the election was stolen. One Trump supporter had been killed by gunfire inside the Capitol while three others died from health-related matters. Therefore, this horrible incident was deadly as well as disgusting.

Trump eventually issued a statement that there will be a peaceful transfer of power after Congress finally finished tabulating the electoral votes. Take that with a good dose of skepticism. The next two weeks will keep us on edge wondering what this lunatic will do next.

Unhinged would not be a sufficient characterization of his mercurial behavior. I’ll go with deranged. And so would many others. A movement albeit delayed is underway to see Trump's removal from office via impeachment or the 25th Amendment. He is unfit to continue.

How Sore Loser Trump is Hurting our Country

Image: The Independent

Since 2016 our intelligence agencies determined that Russia has and will interfere in our elections to benefit Donald Trump. These findings were confirmed by the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III and his team. Despite all the drama stemming from this past election especially the unprecedented aftermath in which Trump has refused to concede, we have not heard much about Russia meddling despite warnings.

Even with Trump’s clear loss, however, Russia got what it wanted: chaos and discord in the United States.

Trump’s disgraced and incompetent lawyers are haphazardly filing lawsuits in several states without success to this point claiming without a shred of evidence widespread voter fraud and ballot counting irregularities. This myth led by Trump himself is allowing the country to deepen its already profound schisms. For his part, President-Elect Joe Biden is moving towards hitting the ground running as soon as his inauguration on January 20, 2021.

These legal maneuvers to overturn an election in which Biden won by over 5 million votes are akin to throwing darts towards a target wearing a blindfold after spinning around three times. It’s not going to hit the bull’s eye.

The effort to postpone the inevitable is being undertaken to satisfy one person, and we all know who that is.  Donald Trump is a sore loser to the nth degree. He cannot bring himself to accept losing especially to “Sleepy” Joe Biden. His rallies whereby tens of thousands of adoring followers risked their lives at these covid super-spreader events presented him with the false impression that the country loves him. Seventy-seven million voters thought otherwise.

Yet, more important than that, Trump actually deems there was widespread voter fraud. He could never lose the election unless it was rigged and fraudulent. He believes it at his core.

Trump also cannot accept the fact the Republicans’ efforts to suppress votes fell short, and (gasp!) African Americans wound up turning out to vote in high numbers. This was a significant factor in urban and suburban areas (yes, Mr. Trump, the suburbs are not only comprised of white housewives).

Trump’s toddler-like sore loser antics, temper tantrums, and made-up b.s. are disgusting and embarrassing to be sure. But it’s also harming our country. The head of the General Services Administration typically issues an “ascertainment” when the outcome of a presidential election is clear.

Without her “ascertainment,” which the AP says “green lights” the federal government to prepare for the transfer of power, Biden’s transition team doesn’t have access to government office space or government funding, which is usually made available for the president-elect. Moreover, without that determination, the Biden team does not have access to the Presidential Daily Briefing that highlights key national security matters.

Trump appointee Emily Murphy is the GSA Administrator, and she has not released this important ascertainment. The stalling could be damaging to our national security as well as the Biden effort to tackle the pandemic.

Image by @NICK_VENTURE

While Republican senators and members of Congress are too terrified of Trump to talk him down from his fishing expedition in the courts, some have gained a bit off spine by grudgingly agreeing that the Biden team be given access to the PDB while insisting Trump has the right to pursue all legal avenues.

Recall how in 2016 the GOP accused Democrats of being sore losers. Hillary Clinton conceded the day after the election and President Obama invited Trump to the White house two days after the election.

Some pundits believe that the stalling tactics are designed to keep Trump’s supporters activated and engaged sufficiently to help with the two Georgia Senate run-off elections on January 5. Should the Democrats fail to sweep the doubleheader, Moscow Mitch McConnell can remain the Senate Majority Leader so that he can sabotage Biden’s term setting up a resumption of power in 2024 either by Trump himself, his son Donnie, Pence, Nikki Haley, Marco or some other character.

Please don’t ever call these cowards patriots. They would sooner destroy our democracy and our country as a whole to satisfy their unquenchable thirst for power and greed. How better way to demonstrate patriotism and the love of our country than to accelerate its failure by destroying our economy, make us vulnerable to malign foreign actors, and allow the pandemic to annihilate hundreds of thousands of Americans? Oh, but they hug the flag. That’s all that matters to them.

For their part, the Democrats need to nationalize the Georgia races and use Trump’s sore loser behavior and the Republicans’ acquiescence as a central theme.

Sore loser Trump will never concede the election. He will never recognize Biden as the legitimate president. He won’t invite him to the White House.

Petty and petulant Trump won’t attend the inauguration. Instead, let Obama take that front row seat at the Capitol during the ceremony—the most recent honest, mature and competent president we had and the one with the largest inauguration crowd.  

                                                  

Paranoia Overtaking Trumpworld

Photo: The Guardian

At a time when there is an external crisis, such as the Coronavirus, that can potentially affect an untold number of Americans and the world’s population (and already has), we need strong, competent, scientific-based leadership. Unfortunately, Donald Trump and his acolytes have not only bungled the rollout of a “plan” to combat the spread of the virus by minimizing its seriousness but are viewing the outbreak through the lens of politics.

Observing how the Stock Market dipped a whopping 12 percent in just a week making the fall the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, Trumpworld who has yet to experience a crisis not of his own making and testing the competency and leadership of an administration which has demonstrated neither, sees the threat of contagion, not to mention an economic slowdown as a result, as serious threats to the president’s re-election.

Measures, such as Trump assigning the lead to help combat the spread of the Coronavirus to Vice President Pence rather than to medical experts, did not help gain the confidence of the American people.  And making Pence the gatekeeper for messaging or spin did not help. Nor did Trump aid his cause by lying about the number of actual cases in the U.S. and portraying a cringe-worthy blasé attitude laced with false optimism.

In an effort to preempt criticism, Trump’s allies have taken to the airwaves accusing the Democrats and the media for exaggerating the scope of the crisis (the fact is, it could very well turn into a pandemic) and trying to “take down the president.”  Toadies from newly decorated  Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh to Rep. Steve Scalise have attempted to make the conversation about politics.

None other than Donald Trump, Jr. added to the “non-politicization” of the discourse with this gem on CNN:

“But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning, is a new level of sickness. You know, I don't know if this is Coronavirus or Trump derangement syndrome, but these people are infected badly.”

Former Under Secretary of State and Managing Editor of TIME magazine Richard Stengel responded to Pence’s reaction to the Trump Jr. diatribe in this tweet:

It's appalling and, frankly, disqualifying that the sitting vice president of the US and the person designated with leading America's response to the coronavirus cannot bring himself to say that, No, Democrats do not want millions of Americans to die from the coronavirus. https://t.co/jRpjdBxr5c

— Richard Stengel (@stengel) March 1, 2020

In Trumpworld, everyone is always trying to take down the president: the Russia Hoax, the Mueller Hoax, the Impeachment Hoax, the Climate Change Hoax, the Evolution Hoax, and now the Coronavirus Hoax—all manifestations of the underlying paranoia gripping Trump and his followers. The evil Democrats led by “vicious” Nancy Pelosi and “corrupt” Adam Schiff, the media (except for FOX News, Breitbart, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc.), the “Deep State,” the leakers, the dis-loyalists, the book authors exposing the Trump White House—are  part of an effort to defeat Trump’s desperate desire to cling to power.

This paranoia surfaced back in August when there were early signs of an economic downturn, Trumpworld accused the Democrats and media for “rooting for a recession”  as a way to stop Trump in November 2020.

We are facing a serious public health crisis whose damage and effects are frighteningly unknown at this point. We should not panic but instead turn our hopes for guidance to a government effort to curtail the impact of the Coronavirus to the best of its ability. 

This is no time for politics from either side, and clearly not the time for Trumpworld to demonstrate weakness and uncertainty through their never ending paranoia. 

Figure Skater Rippon Wins Gold for Pence Snub

Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon  Photo: Instagram

Openly gay figure skater Adam Rippon is poised to begin competition in the Winter Olympics, but before he even stepped out on the ice, he already has given the LGBT community a “short lift” by his reported refusal to meet with Vice President Mike Pence.  Pence, who is leading the United States delegation in South Korea, is the Trump administration’s homophobe-in-chief and architect of the attempt to ban transgender individuals from the armed forces.  Pence’s anti-LGBT record  is notorious.

Rippon will be the first openly gay athlete to compete for the U.S. in the Winter Olympics. Out free skier Gus Kenworthy will also compete.

We're here. We're queer. Get used to it. @Adaripp #Olympics #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/OCeiqiY6BN

— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) February 9, 2018

According to USA Today, Rippon said last month, “You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy? I'm not buying it,” referencing the controversial and scientifically discredited practice that seeks to alter an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Rippon, 28, who is from Scranton. Pa. and reports that he was bullied as a youngster, said multiple times that he did not want to engage with the vice president before competing in the Olympics, but that he was open to a discussion after the games. 

“If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren’t a friend of a gay person but that they think that they’re sick,” Rippon told USA Today.

Rippon & Pence    Image courtesy of Gay Times

He adds, “I’m not trying to pick a fight with the vice president of the United States. If I had the chance to meet him afterwards, after I’m finished competing, there might be a possibility to have an open conversation.”

An unconfirmed report in USA Today indicated that a member of Pence’s staff reached out to Rippon to have a conversation, which according to Business Insider, Jarrod Agen, the vice president's communications director, denied that Pence ever reached out to Rippon. 

“The USA Today report is false and should be corrected. The Vice President's office did not reach out to set up a conversation with Mr. Rippon," Agen said. “As we've said before, the Vice President is supporting all the U.S. athletes in the Olympics and is hoping they all win medals.”

Rippon's words are captured in tweets.

Rippon is being hailed as a hero to the LGBT community for standing up to Pence and all what he represents.  For that, Rippon gets the gold.

UPDATE:  Making his Olympics debut, Adam Rippon's flawless performance on Feb. 11 helped the U.S. win a bronze.