Senator Hawley and Senator Cruz are unfit to service because they support The Big Lie

Echo report published in The Hill by Zach Schonfeld

Liz Cheney says Hawley, Cruz ‘made themselves unfit for future office’- they are both wrong minded supporters of The Big Lie. 

In fact, the 2020 election was won by President Joe Biden!

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday said it would be “very difficult” for her to support Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) or Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after they objected to Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021. In other words, both men supported The Big Lie!

Cheney told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl that both Ivy League-educated senators “know better".

“Both of whom know exactly what the role of Congress is in terms of our constitutional obligations with respect to presidential elections, and yet, both of whom took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order and structure in the aftermath of the last election,” she said. “So in my view, they both have made themselves unfit for future office.”

Cheney on Tuesday lost her primary to (right wing nut!) Harriet Hageman, a former ally who was backed by the former guy Trump and has supported unfounded claims of election fraud in the 2020, presidential election.

The Wyoming congresswoman has been an unapologetic critic of Trump, voting to impeach him and serving as the vice chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) carries his luggage at the Cancun International Airport before boarding his plane back to the U.S., in Cancun, Mexico February 18, 2021.

Ms. Cheney has repeatedly criticized the former president and his allies who back his election fraud claims. (#TheBigLie)

“It would be very difficult,” Cheney said when asked if she could support Cruz, Hawley and others who have closely tied themselves to Trump.

Josh Hawley is marked as a Neo-Nazi

“I think that a fundamental question for me in terms of whether or not someone is fit to be president is whether they’ve abided by their constitutional obligations in the past,” said Cheney.

Cruz and Hawley are both seen as considering future White House bids, while Cheney is planning to launch a political group to keep Trump allies out of office.

Republicans that deny the 2020 election results are not Americans

Republicans have fallen! Obviously, they cannot get back up!

Stop the madness; stop electing Republicans

Echo opinion letter published in HollandSentinel.com in Michigan.

The Republican Party is no longer the party of Bill Milliken and Gerry Ford, a party that valued fiscal responsibility, rule of law, government integrity, and honoring their oath of office. 

Bereft of a party platform, today’s Republicans offer few policies, opting instead to ignite fears and grievances that divide the nation — 30 percent of Republicans believe “true American patriots may have to resort to violence” to save the country. Really?

The last Republican president ignored his oath of office, claimed election fraud and attempted a coup. The vote count, the recounts, the court rulings, Bill Barr, and even Kellyanne Conway agree: he lost. We heard him asking Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” 11,780 votes and we watched him organize and incite an insurrectionist mob at the Capitol. 143 Republicans voted to reject Joe Biden’s electoral college votes, our votes. Unashamed, Republican politicians eagerly seek Trump’s endorsement, and red states passed new election laws allegedly to stop voter fraud but manifestly hindering Democratic voters.

Remember when Republican presidents represented the United States of America?

Republicans are ignoring important issues like public education, domestic terrorism, drug costs, wealth inequality, immigration policies, etc. Instead, they pursue red herrings like critical race theory, “don’t say gay,” “woke” math books, QAnon, birtherism, vaccine refusal, Muslim bans, and replacement theory. Following 68 school shootings since 2020, Republicans offer “thoughts and prayers” but don’t find military assault weapons or any gun as a problem.

Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos

Prominent conservatives left the Party of Lincoln after it became the party of Jefferson Davis. White separatists, Proud Boys and neo-Nazis found acceptance in the GOP when its party leader called people wearing swastikas and chanting anti-semitic slogans “good people.”

The remedy for all this is simple: stop electing Republicans. I’m not saying become a Democrat, but I am saying a Republican vote makes you part of this problem.

Richard Kamischkein in Grand Haven Township, Michigan

P.S.  Rep. Liz Cheney vows to oppose Republican candidates that deny Trump's election loss. In other words, do not vote for Republicans.

Watch Senator John Hawley escaping the dam breaking on January 6th

January 6 insurrection:  Congressional hearings: The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has conducted a series of hearings to share its findings with the U.S. public. The eighth hearing focused on Trump’s inaction on January 6. Here’s a guide to the biggest moments so far.

“The dam,” Cheney declared, “has begun to break.”

Opinion: Finally, the dam is breaking against Trump, opinion by columnist E.J. Dionne, published in The Washington Post: 

WASHINGTON, DC- During (July 21) Thursday’s prime-time session, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) summed up the explosive impact of this summer’s hearings by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“The dam,” she declared, “has begun to break.”

Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, was speaking largely of new investigative opportunities that a parade of witnesses has opened into the former President Donald Trump’s illicit effort to maintain power. But her statement had much broader implications.

The January 6 committee has fundamentally altered public perceptions of Trump’s role in the violence at the Capitol.

More important, it has increased the likelihood that he will be prosecuted for his efforts — from Election Day to Jan. 7, 2021 — to overthrow the outcome of a free election. It has made the attack on our democracy a central issue in this fall’s midterm elections, and will keep it there with the September hearings the committee announced.

Also, it has  weakened Trump’s political position, within his party and with the broader electorate.

Convincingly, the committee lived up to the promise made at the outset by Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) that its evidence would demonstrate that the January 6 attack was the “culmination of an attempted coup,” not the work of an out-of-control crowd. The riot was of a piece with Trump’s creation of slates of fake electors, pressure on GOP legislatures to throw out valid election results and even a request to a Republican election official in Georgia to “find” votes for him that didn’t exist.

Trump harbored hopes that the mayhem would block or delay Congress’s certification of his defeat, as Thursday’s hearing made clear. Incredibly, the former guy was even prepared to endanger the life of his vice president, Mike Pence, for refusing to act illegally in obstructing Joe Biden’s victory. Against the counsel of aides and family members, Trump let the criminal assault — by a horde he knew was armed — continue for hours. He did not (grudgingly) call off the invaders until it was clear his stratagem had failed.

By wrongmindedly staying loyal to Trump, the committee’s presentation also showed that Republican politicians could pay a significant long-term price. 

Demonstrators steal a Metropolitan Police riot shield outside the US Capitol building during a riot in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021.
Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg

Trump’s mastery of the Republican Party has been underscored by the reluctance of leaders who denounced him immediately after Jan. 6 to press the matter any further. They either resigned themselves to his power in the party and fell silent or, in the case of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and so many of his colleagues, reverted to pro-Trump sycophancy.

So it must have been very satisfying for Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican who co-led Thursday’s hearing with Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), to show footage of McCarthy denouncing Trump shortly after the attack. 

Since he gave that convincing comment, McCarthy has subsequently led the internal party persecution of Cheney and Kinzinger for continuing to insist upon a truth that McCarthy himself once acknowledged.

The committee also called the bluff of the GOP’s Ivy League Fake Populist Caucus. After showing a photo of Sen. Josh Hawley (Republican of Missouri and Yale Law School) going into the Capitol with a fist raised in solidarity with the pro-Trump mob, they ran video of him fleeing in terror as the violent crowd surged through the hallways.

#WatchHawleyRun

Trump still has a hold on his party, and many of his election-denying candidates have prevailed in primaries. But recent polling in Michigan, New Hampshire and nationwide suggests that a large share of Republicans are searching for 2024 alternatives, growing weary of Trump and becoming exhausted by his refusal to let go of his 2020 election defeat. Footage of the taping of a Trump speech on Jan. 7 that captured his refusal to say “the election is over” brought home how lies about 2020 are now the heart of his political message.

By systematically calling on Republicans, including his former aides (not “his political enemies,” Cheney pointed out), to describe what Sarah Matthews, Trump’s former deputy press secretary, called his “indefensible” behavior, the committee sought to reach beyond a Democratic Party base that already despises the former president.

This, along with the committee’s commitment to hold more hearings this fall, is a message to the roughly one-fifth of Republicans who have an unfavorable view of Trump as well as independent voters: The imperative this year is to defeat GOP politicians who refuse to face up to Trump’s crimes against democracy.

"Crimes” is the key word used to the other major effect of the committee’s work: If the Justice Department might once have worried that prosecuting Trump would appear “political,” it now has reason to be far more concerned about the message it would send if it fails to investigate and indict a former president so eager to trample the law and to welcome violence.

The committee’s task was to ensure that Trump is held accountable — morally, politically and legally. On all these fronts, the dam really has broken.

Let me get this right: The Big Lie enablers sought tRumpzi pardons? Guilt by associaiton!

Why would TRumpzis need pardons his allies truly believed the election had been stolen? Echo essay published on MSNBC. written by Michael A. Cohen. 

American people were shown evidence about Trump’s lies to the world, his illegitimate efforts to use the Justice Department to further his false Fake Election Fraud claims, and his fomenting of the January 6 mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol. 

Perhaps most unsettling was his embrace of the demonstrators chant to “Hang Mike Pence.” (Trump reportedly told his aides, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” that Pence “deserves it.”)

But what was perhaps most striking about the hearings was learning about the complicity of Trump’s allies, both inside the White House and on Capitol Hill. They cynically enabled his assault on American democracy, even though it now seems apparent that they didn’t believe a word about his spewing about The Big Lie, that somehow the 2020 election was not valid. 

Among the more startling revelations came from Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who said that multiple members of Congress, including Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., sought presidential pardons for their efforts to overturn the election results.

If Trump allies truly believed the election had been stolen, why would they need pardons? They were simply pushing good faith arguments about election fraud, right? The fact that they sought Trump’s assistance in potentially avoiding prosecution is compelling evidence that they knew the claims they were making then — and are still making now — were not true.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to say that Trump was responsible for the events of January 6, instead stating that “everybody” (?) is responsible. 

But McCarthy is on tape, telling colleagues that Trump “bears responsibility for his words and actions. No ifs, ands or buts.” 

Moreover, the top-ranking House Republican has also called Trump’s actions “unacceptable” and that “nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it.”

I would imagine that the latter attitude is shared by many of his staffers, who were shown on tape fleeing their offices in terror on January 6, as the Trump-inspired mob entered the building. Still, McCarthy continues to defend the former president, and in the process, cravenly and cynically lies to Republican voters.

If one did a private survey of House Republicans, I would expect that the vast majority would acknowledge Trump’s primary culpability for the violence that took place that day. Most would likely acknowledge that his claims of a stolen election are, to quote former Attorney General Bill Barr, “bulls---.”

But the truth, it seems, is no impediment to their ambitions. The few Republicans who are willing to publicly recognize the central role Trump played in the insurrection have been ostracized from the party, or are choosing not to seek re-election. 

Unfortunately, the second Republican on the January 6 committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, has taken the latter course. Cheney is fighting to keep her job against a pro-Trump Republican primary opponent, which looks increasingly like a long-shot.

The overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and those seeking to become congressional Republicans have chosen to peddle the former president’s lies to their supporters. They’d rather be members of Congress than patriots.

They have plenty of company among Trump’s inner circle.

In fact, those close to Trump were heard over and over about how they knew in early November that he’d lost the 2020, presidential election. Alex Cannon, a campaign lawyer, says he gave the same information to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who replied via text, “There’s no there there.” A key Trump aide, Jason Miller, recounted Trump being told, in the Oval Office, by a campaign data expert that he was going to lose.

Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter and former White House aide told the committee that she believed Barr when he said that Trump had lost.

But that didn’t stop them from parroting Trump’s lies and enabling his election mania. Barr spent months before the campaign raising false claims about potential voter fraud and allowing partisan Justice Department investigations to take place in the run-up to Election Day. Ivanka Trump has largely tried to wash her hands of the Jan.6 attack, but she was there on the White House Ellipse with her father when he urged the protesters who had gathered to march down to the Capitol and “demand that Congress do the right thing.”

Meadows continued to push the Big Lie about 2020, even bringing election deniers like Sydney Powell, Rudy Guiliani, and Mike “The Pillow Guy” Lindell into the White House to tell Trump the lies he was so desperate to hear.

Cheney most accurately described the immoral choice that basically her entire party of fellow Republicans had made: “There will come a day when president Trump is gone,” she said. “But your dishonor will remain.” With the January 6, committee resuming hearings Monday, we should expect to see more clearly how deep that dishonor runs.

Why does Michael Flynn continue to receive a military pension? He is a traitor!

The questions Michael Flynn refused to answer come into focus
“General Flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States?” It wasn't a trick question, but Michael Flynn wouldn't answer it.

Echo essay by Steve Benen published in the MaddowBlog

When it comes to understanding what transpired on January 6, 2021, there are few potential witnesses more knowledgeable than Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s disgraced former White House national security adviser.

As we’ve discussed, Flynn (a retired US Army Lt. General!), for example, attended a December 2020, meeting in the Oval Office in which participants discussed declaring a national emergency as part of a scheme to keep Trump in power despite his defeat. The retired general also reportedly raised the prospect of deploying U.S. troops, seizing voting machines, and declaring martial law as part of an apparent coup attempt.


Yesterday, however, Flynn’s importance grew. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Donald Trump instructed Mark Meadows, his then-chief of staff, to contact both Roger Stone and Flynn on Jan. 5, and Meadows followed those instructions.

What did they discuss? For now, only the participants know for sure.

That traitor Michael Flynn collects a military pension!

Given all of this, it’s not surprising that January 6 investigators subpoenaed Flynn, but as we learned in March, he refused to cooperate, repeatedly pleading the Fifth. What we did not know, however, is what questions led Flynn to express concerns about self-incrimination. New York magazine summarized: During the hearing, the January 6 panel played a clip from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn’s deposition in which he paused for one minute and 36 seconds when asked if he felt the violence on January 6, was justified, then repeatedly pleaded the Fifth.

In a hearing filled with memorable moments, this stood out. Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the bipartisan panel, (daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney!) was shown asking Flynn, via online conferencing, asking, “General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified?” After a 106-second delay in which Flynn conferred with counsel, the retired general wouldn’t answer. “Do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified morally?” Cheney asked. “Take the Fifth,” Flynn replied.

“Do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified legally?” Cheney asked. “Fifth,” Flynn replied.

“General Flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America?” Cheney asked. “The Fifth,” he responded.

Remember, we’re talking about a retired three-star general who served as the White House national security adviser in 2017. Asked whether he believes in the peaceful transition of power in the United States, Flynn apparently felt that his answer might be used against him.

Does this picture look familiar?  Michael Flynn at dinner with Vladimir Putin.

As jarring as this was, let’s also not forget that as far as his former boss is concerned, Flynn may yet be welcomed back into public service. In April 2020, during his re-election campaign, Trump told reporters that he was open to bringing Flynn back in a second term. Asked specifically if he might invite Flynn into his administration, the then-president replied, “I would certainly consider it, yeah. I would. I think he’s a fine man.”

Two weeks later, then-Vice President Mike Pence added that he, too, would be on board with bringing Flynn back into government.

Several months later, Flynn was the beneficiary of one of Trump’s most brazenly corrupt pardons.

It was against this backdrop that he soon after sat down with the January 6 committee and pleaded the Fifth rather than share his opinion about the peaceful transition of power.

January 6 House Committee is teaching important history

Opinion echo letter published in The Gazette, newspaper in Cedar Rapid Iowa newspaper: 

Spooky January 6 poster is reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 images

I have been following the U.S. House special committee investigation on January 6, 2021. As someone who has taken part in campaigns for both Republican and Democratic candidates, this is not a political event. It is about supporting our constitution and defending our democracy. It is an opportunity for an educational moment for the American public.

According to Cornell Law School, an insurrection is defined as someone or "someones" who incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto. 

If you watch a network that has neglected its responsibility to the American public to cover the hearings, (aka #FakeFox) I suggest that you change the channel and pay attention to what is being said. 

These hearings are constructing an important accounting of American history that even most Republicans agreed is necessary in the immediate aftermath of that horrible insurrectionist day. Some Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney, have now put country over party, knowing the peril that we face. 

Unfortunately, far too many want to ignore the hearings, even the testimony given under oath by top advisers in former President Donald Trump`s administration and campaign.

To ignore these hearings is to ignore a threat to the most important part of a democratic republic — elected officials’ willingness to relinquish power when they have lost. If we no longer have that, then we no longer have a democracy. That is the threat we face. I hope we rise to face it head on, and it starts with working to understand what led to January 6.

From Dan Voss, in Atkins Iowa

Eleven of the January 6th insurrectionists are charged with sedition

Echo editorial opinion published in New Jersey NJ.com.

Opinion

The Former Trump speaks, and a democracy shudders | Editorial

Unfortunately, the former guy Trump held a rally to unleash his 2024, campaign strategy, which can be distilled to this: 

He is unabashedly pro-coup, and he is ready to take another crack at destroying Western democracy.

#TFG Trump admitted that he was scheming to overturn the 2020, election results.

His speech in Texas was another noxious stew of white grievance and cultish odium, but for the first time, the former president suggested that he will pardon the Capitol rioters if he returns to “the beautiful, beautiful house that happens to be white.”

It isn’t often that a former US president attempts to undermine a congressional inquiry and a federal investigation by pledging his support for criminals – including 11 charged with sedition -- and offers them impunity for advancing his political aims with a violent force that resulted in five dead cops and a democracy teetering.

But Trump’s 80-minute temper tantrum is also a reminder that ignoring him is no longer an option, and that this smoldering authoritarian crusade -- fueled by lies about a stolen election -- will go on for as long as it takes for him to be brought to justice.

That is clearly what worries him most, and as he hears bloodhounds in the distance, Trump is saying all the quiet stuff out loud again: If anyone tries to prosecute him for inciting a coup, he will try to incite a bigger one.

In fact, The Former Guy tRump urged his supporters to stage massive protests if prosecutors indict him, and while public assembly is an acceptable form of expression, it bears repeating that the last time he ordered people to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” thousands desecrated a government building and sent 140 police officers to the hospital.

And this call to arms was different: He called prosecutors investigating his actions “racist” and “mentally sick” and accused them of “prosecutorial misconduct at the highest level.” It just so happens that the three officials leading the major cases against him -- Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr., New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton County (Ga.) DA Fani Willis -- happen to be Black.

It was an appeal to white solidarity, a racially motivated call to attack the rule of law: “In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you,” Trump said, as he looked out on an audience dotted with Confederate flags.

And the weekend was still humming when Trump issued a statement in which he admitted that he asked then Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election.

Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the House January 6th Committee, summarizes the state of Trump: “He acknowledges that he was attempting to overthrow the election, he threatens prosecutors, he uses the same language that he knows caused the violence, and I think that it tells us he would clearly do this all again if he were given the chance,” she said.

“It’s very important for the American people to recognize what he says of his intentions, what his intentions were for January 6, and what he would do again if he got anywhere close to power.”

If Trump’s rhetoric sounds like the usual fire-ants-in-the-brain stuff, consider who is listening: A Republican candidate for state senate in Michigan told his followers that they should show up at the polls with their guns, and if he doesn’t win the election, to “be prepared to lock and load. . . .make sure justice prevails.” 

At the same gathering, a Republican candidate for governor told voters that “if you see something you don’t like happening with the machines, unplug it from the wall.”

That’s the state of the American democracy: It’s under the gun, ready to be unplugged on a whim. It’s being orchestrated by an increasingly unmoored man with a megaphone and a captive audience, spewing a torrent of lies. Tempting as it may be, this is not the time to stop paying attention.

NJ.com/Opinion.

Important and urgent work to protect American democracy- January 6th Investigation

Rep. Liz Cheney says Trump's offer to consider January 6 insurrectionist pardons shows 'he'd do it all again':  

"Trump uses language he knows caused the January 6th, violence; suggests he’d pardon the January 6th insurrectionist defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election,” Cheney tweeted. 'He’d do it all again if given the chance'.”

Opinion: If we are to save our democracy, there must be a reckoning for the January 6th insurrectiont attack!

Echo opinion by Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post.

On January 6, 2021, insurrection put American democracy on the brink of being usurped. 

We must never forget.

The first week of 2021, brought an unprecedented rupture in the democratic process that Americans have taken for granted since the election of John Adams in 1796.

A sitting president, Donald Trump, was trying desperately to remain in office despite his defeat in a free and fair election. He summoned a mob to Washington as an intimidating show of force, and that violent mob — whipped into a frenzy by Trump and his cronies — stormed the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s loss.

Much has happened since, both domestically and in foreign affairs. Now, as then, the biggest factor in most Americans’ day-to-day lives is the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And the leadership of the Republican Party dearly wants us to forget that the Jan. 6 insurrection ever took place.

But the nation cannot just “move on” from such an attack on our constitutional order. Not since 1814, when British soldiers marched into Washington, had the Capitol been overrun and pillaged. Not even during the Civil War was the orderly transfer of presidential power disrupted. Never had a defeated presidential candidate — much less a defeated incumbent who had sworn to defend the Constitution — refused to accept the result of an election.

We need to know everything that is knowable about these events. And those who inspired, organized and committed the insurrection need to be brought to justice.

President Biden and Vice President Harris delivered remarks to mark the anniversary of the failed putsch of the prior year, on January 6th.

J

Jacob Chansley screams (howls!) as he and other intruders maraud through the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) planned a series of events, beginning with prayer and a moment of silence in the House chamber, where so many of her colleagues sheltered in terror on Jan. 6 as a crush of thugs and zealots tried to smash their way inside.

And because Democrats are in charge of the White House and Congress, most Republicans will do their best to pretend that the commemoration is more about politics than nationhood.

Unfortunately, Trump is also expected to speak on January 6th, and he will surely repeat his lies and gibberish about the election somehow being “stolen” from him and his supporters. He and the GOP — his GOP, make no mistake — have been trying to make the insurrection into a partisan issue. Don’t let them.

The mob threatened to “hang” Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, after Pence announced that he would do his constitutional duty and certify Biden’s electoral victory. The senators, House members, staff aides and other Capitol workers forced to flee for their lives or shelter in terror belonged to both parties. And if you surveyed the political beliefs of the scores of police officers who were clubbed, beaten, doused with bear spray and abused with racist slurs by the mob, I wager you’d find as many conservatives as progressives.

What happened last Jan. 6, 2021, was much bigger and more important than politics. And holding accountable the perpetrators of this attack on our democracy must take precedence over any political concerns. This is bigger than who wins the midterm elections or who runs for president in 2024. This project of reckoning is about the continuation of the American experiment.

Actually, there are three simultaneous accountability projects whose success the American people must demand.

The House select committee investigating the attack (appointed by Pelosi only after Republicans refused to form a proper blue-ribbon commission) appears to be doing an admirable job of collecting new information, including about Trump’s actions that day. The committee must not let stonewalling by Trump and his inner circle cause delay — a full year has already passed. It is good that the committee plans to issue an interim report this summer but, in the meantime, it should hold public hearings and release as much information as possible. Their work is not just important but also urgent.

Simultaneously, Congress as a whole must shore up the weaknesses in our transfer-of-power process exposed by the insurrection. The mob’s aim was to halt the official counting of electoral votes — and the mob succeeded, at least for several hours. 

Even the libertarian Cato Institute agrees that the 1876, Electoral Count Act is “a mess of ambiguities and contradictions” and needs to be reformed. Legislation to do so should begin making its way toward Biden’s desk.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department must continue to press criminal charges against the insurrectionists. It is not enough to prosecute and sentence those who participated bodily in the assault. The puppet masters who assembled the crowd and sent it off to sack the Capitol must be held to account as well.

And no one, including #TFG Trump, can be considered above the law.

Former Guy and his deceived base

Unbelievable!  Incredulous! 

https://tucson.com/opinion/letters/letter-the-big-lie/article_6d8004e2-b353-11eb-ad60-c3b1d5e53be1.html

Opinion echo published in Tuscon.com

Dear Editor:

Seventy percent of the Republicans believe #FormerGuy Trumpzi's falsehood that President Biden was elected without enough votes.

The whole country has been manipulated by this gross lying barbarian and wannabe (self appointed! selfish!) autocrat. He said he liked the poorly educated. Well, they and the evangelicals adore this con man. The country has been dumped and dummied down.

Idiots everywhere believing this madman. He has achieved near beatific status with his base, even though he has no core values other than ego gratification. During his 4-year tenure, he has replaced traditional democracy with despotism, nepotism and autocracy. 

Fear has taken over the Grand Old Party, and the turbulent (Naziism) 30's and 40's in Europe come to mind when contemplating the future of our democracy. Where are the Howard Bakers, Barry Goldwaters, Everett Dirksens, Bob Doles*, etc. to rescue us and return us all to sanity?  Under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine an optimistic future.

From:  Frederick Leinfest in Oro Valley Arizona

*I nominate Rep. Liz Cheney! 

Thank you from reasonable Wyoming Republicans and Democrats

Echo opinion letter published in the Wyoming newspaper the Rocket Miner, reporting the state news since 1881.

Imagining yourself standing in the shoes of another is a good way to understand that person’s point of view, and the motives and rationales for the decisions they make. Try picturing yourself as a U.S. congressperson in the Capitol on January 6th. 

You’re doing the things that you were elected to do. 

Rep. Cheney: What Trump did 'is a line that cannot be crossed'

Guiding your actions and decisions are the upbringing you have had, your years of education, an understanding of your constituents, The Constitution and U.S. history, also the travel, relationships, financial dealings, fighting and loving, reading, and the spiritual experiences you’ve had. This is a lot, but it never seems to be enough for any of us.

At first it was just a minor distraction, perhaps another text message. There seemed to be some commotion and movement coming from Trump’s rally up at the Lincoln Memorial. There’s some word about a throng of people carrying flags and banners and chanting various things. They’re heading right for the Capitol. Some vague news comes in of other groups encircling the building. 

Of course, there was nothing to worry about, because there are metal barriers, and lots of Capitol policemen protecting the building.

But wait, what’s this? Another message, a rumor goes through the House Chamber that some protestors have shoved the barriers aside and overpowered the guards. Weirdly, the rumor, now a bit of a panic, has it that loud and angry protestors have actually entered the building. What? This can’t be. How could they? Why would they? Who could they be, and what or who might have set them in motion to act this way?

January 6th insurrection enabled by the #FormerGuy, a threat to American Democracy

Those were gun shots in the hall. Guards draw guns. Doors are locked. In a House of leaders everyone is shouting orders while taking defensive positions on the floor and under desks. “Quick!” someone shouts, “Out this way!”

It’s not a movie about zombies. UFOs have not invaded. They were not even foreigners or radical leftists. In varying degrees, the invaders were white Republicans and Christians and conservative and thought of themselves as patriotic, blessed and authorized by their beloved leader Donald Trump. On the walk down The National Mall they were 100% certain of themselves. When the cameras zoomed in on their faces there were no doubts, there was no humor, they were not kidding.

It was the eyes, though, where one could see into their very brains and beliefs, however demented, and that was the scary part. In the eyes was a determination to kill or be killed. This was completely justified because their president had ordered it. Everything was unfolding as QAnon had prophesized. The traitorous vice president would hang! The leftist speaker of the House would be shot in the head. Many would be arrested, tortured, and executed. It was a day of reckoning.

Had you been there, how could you have viewed what had happened as anything but a very scary and dangerous invasion? People died, after all, and frankly, it’s amazing that hundreds didn’t die. Certainly, if the invaders had been African-American, or “Antifa,” the defenders would have let lose fusillades. The whole world looked on and they were appalled. They must have said, “It’s nutcase’ism over there. So much for looking to them for leadership.”

On that evening, one would have thought that the craziness had reached a peak, and rational heads would prevail. Liz Cheney viewed and analyzed with a clear mind, along with other responsible law makers, and drew on all her years of upbringing, education, talking and listening and thinking, and experience in life, and called the day’s events exactly what they were: an insurrection against the government and Constitution of the United States, and it was ordered by the deranged, cult-like president, Donald Trump.

All Wyoming Democrats have had many issues with Representative Cheney, but if she were up for re-election right now, we would vote for her. Given that a primary will be involved, we would all have to at least temporarily become Republicans. 

Statewide, we are 30% of the voters. Also, all moderate and rational Republicans are in agreement. Together we vastly outnumber nutcase Republicans, who are boisterous and fist pumping, but they are cowardly bullies, and they are outnumbered. Together, Democrats and mature Republicans will reward Liz Cheney with another term in the House, or higher office, because she made the right decision to protect The Constitution, to defend free and fair elections, and to vote for Trump’s impeachment.

From Tom Gagnon, Rock Springs

Concentration camps - call the immigrant detention centers what they are: draconian border policy

An essay by Eladio Bobadilla, published in Latino Rebels and posted on the History News Network.

On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, tweeted an indignant condemnation of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who earlier had denounced what she called “concentration camps” on the nation’s southern border, referring to detention centers where thousands of mostly Central American asylum seekers continue to be being held in accordance with the Trump administration’s Draconian border policy that has already produced tens of thousands of detentions, thousands of family separations, and two dozen deaths.

A concentration camp is where humans are dehumanized.

In my opinion, Liz Cheney is the quintessential example to demonstrate how the progeny apple does not fall far from the tree. Her father Dick, is an idiot.

Tragically, Cheney is not alone. Other conservative commentators have objected to the characterization of border holding facilities as “concentration camps,” claiming that the use of such terminology is inaccurate and “demeans the memory” of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. But these commentators are wrong, both historically and morally. Not only is it historically accurate to call these detention centers concentration camps, but the uproar reveals a curious and cruel irony: conservatives are more outraged by the terms used to describe the detention camps than they are by the conditions inside them.

First, as several historians and journalists have already pointed out, it is important to remember that although the two terms are often used interchangeably, concentration camps are not the same as death or extermination camps. As Andrea Pitzer —who wrote a book about the history of concentration camps— has shown, the concept and use of concentration camps did not originate during (or even in reference to) the Holocaust.

Concentration camps were first implemented at least several decades earlier by Spanish authorities in Cuba, where colonial rulers forcibly “re-concentrated” peasants in the countryside (who often aided independence efforts) into urban centers under tight colonial grip in an effort to crush the insurrection and regain control of the population. 

Moreover, the situation and conditions at the border certainly fit the longstanding definition of concentration camps outlined by both dictionaries and human rights groups, which generally define them as the detention or confinement of civilians in harsh conditions without trial or due process.

This is precisely what is happening at the border, and it matters that some are calling detention centers “concentration camps” and that they are correct. By all accounts, the conditions are horrific. Those who have seen the detention centers have likened them to “human dog pounds,” where children have been forced to sleep on the ground; where as many as 76 migrants have been crammed into cells designed for only a few people; and where detainees been exposed for long periods of time to 100-degree weather without cooling or shade, or alternatively, forced to live in “icebox” conditions, something which recently resulted in the death of a teenager.

There are also reports that refugees are in some cases being denied sufficient food, clean water, access to toilets, and feminine products. And human rights observers have warned that “the state of human rights in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands is grave and is only getting worse.” So when activists call the conditions at the border “concentration camps” they do so not to belittle the particular atrocities that European Jews suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany, but to remind us, in the spirit of the sentiment “never again,” that those atrocities did not materialize suddenly, but rather, built up in a slow simmer that began with concentration, isolation, and dehumanization—all of which characterize the conditions at the border camps in our present day.

It is also worth noting that these historical allusions are not new, either. In the years following the Second World War, numerous human rights activists argued that the horrors of the Holocaust should guide how Americans thought about vulnerable populations, including foreigners in (and those seeking entry into) the country—and journalists, activists, and observers routinely decried the “concentration camp-like” conditions in which braceros and undocumented workers were forced to live. 

And when in the 1970s, some policymakers suggested creating a national citizenship ID, to curb illegal immigration, the immigrants’ rights advocates and many ordinary Americans objected, suggesting, as one government worker put it, that “we need no stars of David in the United States.” It is telling that many of the most vocal advocates for immigrants’ rights in the 20th century were, in fact, prominent Jewish figures —people like the labor leader Lenore Miller and the immigration attorney Ira Gollobin— who knew better than most what hate, scapegoating, and xenophobia could produce.

Of course, the comparisons do run the risk of going too far. But just as we should be careful not to overstate the realities at the border, neither should we downplay them or the potential for current conditions to get worse. Perhaps Cheney and others like her have been comforted by an exceptionalist view of the United States into thinking that “concentration camps” cannot possibly exist within (or at) our borders. 

Unfortunately, yes they do, and things could get worse, especially considering we find ourselves living in a moment when nativists and right-wing extremists have found aid, comfort, and validation in the highest seats of American power.

So we should call Trump’s detentions centers what they are: concentration camps. More importantly, we should be troubled not by the fact that such terminology is being used, but by the uncomfortable reality that it’s being used so fittingly.