Tag Archives: 1.6.21

Point of View Columns

A Shame and a Damn Shame

Much has been written, and will be written about what happened on 1.6.21. It is truly a day of infamy in American history that will be remembered in the same category as 12.7.41 (Pearl Harbor), 11.22.63 (the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy), 4.7.68 (the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.) and 9.11.01 (the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon).

Of course, 1.6.21 is that it was a historically unique event – it was the first time since the Civil War that armed Americans attacked the American government with the intent to overthrow the existing government. It was also unique because it was inspired and led by a sitting President of the United States.

That is why the report of the January 6th Committee has revealed the shame of 1.6.21 as well as the damn shame of what has happened since that fateful day. The fact that the Committee referred four charges against Donald Trump to the United States Department of Justice for criminal prosecution is without precedent in American history.

One hundred years from now, if there is a United States, Donald J. Trump will be a name of a president that remembered with shame along with the likes of Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon. He will have a permanent place in the Presidential Rogues Gallery where his memory will always reside.

The fact that he is now reduced to selling NFT cards of himself along with renting out his faded Mar a Lago estate for Iranian weddings is only the beginning of his slipping down the slimy ladder of infamy. Even if he never is indicted or convicted of his many crimes, his name will be synonymous with shame and that is well-deserved.

We can be sure that he will be wailing and moaning about “witch hunts” and “lynch mobs” which will only energize his dwindling base, some of whom will follow him to the bitter end. And while we will probably never see him in an orange jumpsuit, we will see him diminished to the point of being a living synonym for words like “traitor”, “buffoon” and “failure”.

What is a damn shame is something far worse than Trump. What is a damn shame is the thousands upon thousands of Republicans who are following what they believe the successful Trump playbook, employing bombast and insult and total disregard for the Constitution, equal rights and the rule of law. One can make the argument that Trump is a morally diminished individual who cannot help but dive into the deep abyss of hate and immorality. But the likes of Ron DeSantis and Josh Hawley and Mike Pompeo would never drink the authoritarian and undemocratic Kool-Aid that they will gladly serve to the American public in a quest for power.

It is a damn shame that the Republicans in the House of Representatives who cowered in fear in the Capitol while the hordes unleashed by Trump warmed the building still support Trump and his message. They refuse to even censure him much less demand that justice be meted out the armed insurrectionist and quasi-fascist hordes that worship Trump to this very day.

It is a damn shame that the Republican Party will, in the wake of the Trump Tsunami, support Trump wannabe’s like Dr. Oz and Trump sock puppets like Herschel Walker, all in the name of “Making America Great Again” when in reality they really want a return to a mythical America where Christian white male supremacy was the American Way of Life.

And finally, it is a damn shame that this may be the new normal when the opportunity for progress and true equity could be so close to being real.

And that is why the aftermath of 1.6.21 is both a shame and a damn shame.

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Point of View Columns

Playing with Fire Will Burn Down America

Enemies of America must be absolutely joyful at the way that this country is being torn apart – by Americans. It should be patently clear by now that anyone with malign intent against the United States could not have come up with a better strategic plan than what we see being played out by the protoconservative right wing of the right wing of the Republican party.

In its efforts to stand against the tides of righteous change and justice, change and justice that has made this imperfect country a potentially better country, the neoconservative forces have managed to mangle many progressive initiatives and are trying to obliterate even the gossamer thin efforts to correct the countless wrongs committed in the name of the United States of America.

It appears that at some place along the path to true justice and reconciliation there are millions of Americans who are not interested in either. To millions of Americans rights and justice and equity of anyone who is not white somehow endangers their very existence. To millions of Americans – men and women – the idea of a woman having full and complete control over her body is not only a crime against nature, it is a crime against the foundation of America itself.

Someplace along the line millions of Americans have come to believe that civil rights, gender equity, women’s rights and a truly participatory and fair democracy are evil and must not only be curbed, they must be ground into the dust and tossed into the trash heap of history. These millions of Americans do not believe that American children should be told that the land on which they live was stolen or that the foundation of the wealth that many Americans enjoy was based on race-based slavery.

Somehow gender equity has become a mortal danger to American manhood. Somehow respect and care for the environment in which we will all live – or will all die – is seen as effete and against the American Way even as Environmental Armageddon is literally looming over the horizon.

For these millions of Americans, holding on to the broken and dusty shards of a misbegotten past is better that aspiring for a better and more inclusive tomorrow. And they will literally do anything and everything to hold on to those broken and dusty shards.

They will mangle interpretations of the singularly non-majoritarian Constitution to skew the voting process as well as declare fealty to rights that don’t exist (like the so-called right to bear arms) and to strip away rights that have barely taken root in Black and Latino and Asian communities.

They have gerrymandered themselves into the majority that they are not. They have packed the federal courts from the District level to the Supreme Court with young right-wing judges who will keep a stranglehold on any rights movement for a generation. And they have sanctioned the violent overthrow of the United States government if they don’t get their way.

As the January 6th Committee presents the results of a one-year investigation into the events of 1.6.21 we will learn the depths to which the right wing will lie, cheat, and kill in order to maintain their minority rule.

There was once a country with a race-based regiment of minority rule that ultimately faded away – but not without a fight. Indeed, the minority white regime in the Republic of South Africa laid out the blueprint for how white minority rule can work in the short term.

But it should be clear, America is not South Africa and it may be that the Afrikaner blueprint may just lead to a dystopian whirlpool of grievances from which it will be difficult for this country to survive.

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Point of View Columns

Another Week in the Life of America – 2021

June 3, 2021

Now #45 is going around with the truly bizarre prediction/promise/fantasy that he will be reinstated and installed as president in August of this year. Aside from the fact that there is no constitutional provision that even remotely facilitates such a bizarre turn of events, it is clear that in his desperate desire to maintain some relevancy in the cesspool of irrelevancy that is his life, #45 will try anything.

The sad and dangerous part of this particular scenario is that millions of Americans already believe him and as August approaches we may discover that 1.6.21 was just a dress rehearsal.

June 4, 2021

Just when you thought that things could not get any more bizarre, there was a focus on election season in Mexico. As of this date almost 90 candidates for various offices have been assassinated – sometimes the ubiquitous criminal cartels claimed responsibility, sometimes more nefarious political motives seem to be at play.

The point is, with all the discussion about “Second Amendment” solutions and strategies here in the United States, can it be too farfetched to imagine that grievance-laden members of MAGA Nation, the most heavily armed faction in the United States outside of the military and the police, may decide to take matters into their own rifle sights.

It was approximately a year ago that right wing white supremacists plotted to kill the governor of Michigan. Ever since 1.6.21 there have been countless members of Congress and public officials throughout America have engaged enhanced security details because of the threats and dangers that have been fostered and fertilized by #45 and his enablers and supporters.

June 5, 2021

Carnage in the United States of Gun continues and a federal judge in California says that an AR-15 assault rifle is just like a Swiss Army knife. There has been a record of mass shootings in this country since the beginning of the year and yet this judge, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled that California’s ban assault rifles is unconstitutional.

Putting salt in the wounds of all of the families of the victims of gun violence – and pouring gasoline on the firestorm of gun carnage that is sweeping across the nation – this judge actually uttered his Swiss Army knife analogy. Many observers stated that this opinion seemed to have been lifted word for word from a  National Rifle Association list of talking points.

The judge will never meet with the relatives and survivors of gun violence although it would seem that he is insulated from any aspect of compassion or intelligence.

June 6, 2021

Over the weekend it has become clear that the November 3rd election of last year did not result in the election of Joe Biden as president. It appears that Joe Manchin, the senator from the Great State of West Virginia is the head of state because anything and everything that the Biden administration wants to accomplish absolutely must meet with Manchin’s approval.

And now Senator Manchin has announced that he is not going to vote in support of the voting rights reform bill.

So there…and by the way, who actually won the November 2020 election?

June 7, 2021

Democrats are working very hard to find a way to lose the elections in 2022 and 2024 – really. Considering that there is no real argument that the Black vote delivered the White House to the Democratic Party, it would seem that legislation regarding the protection of voting rights and protection from police violence would be “hot knife through butter” tasks.

Yet, this items are caught up in the arcane rules of Congress that are insurmountable except when it comes time for tax breaks for billionaires and Fortune 50 companies. The arithmetic is clear that the Republicans hold a death grip on the putative Democratic majority in the Senate, but the filibuster rule is not written on stone tablets delivered from Stone Mountain in Georgia.

If the urgency of now for Black America means anything, now and in the 2022 and 2024 elections, the Democrats need to find a way.

June 8, 2021

There is a very real opportunity for everyone alive today to be a witness to history being made. Unfortunately, it may not be the best narrative for which anyone could have wished.

But the reality is that by degrading the election process on a national scale, there is a very real possibility that the 2022 and 2024 elections could result in figurative and literal bloodletting as the credibility of the electoral process because Republicans continue to question that credibility.

As has been noted, it is guaranteed that every Republican who loses an election in 2022 will claim fraud – and there is no reason to believe that Democratic losers won’t  also be singing from the same playbook. And there will be enough turmoil and litigation in the two years before the presidential election that once again the Republican/Democratic loser will claim fraud and voter theft and then…and then we will have an opportunity to witness an existential threat to the world’s oldest democracy.

This will be the legacy of #45.

June 9, 2021

The range of possibilities in the Republican journey to the City of Crazy in the Land of Stupid is infinite. Exhibit 278 is the recent pilgrimage of Republican state legislators from all over the United States to visit and observe the voter recount taking place in Arizona.

This November 2020 election vote recount is the most recent of the dozens of recounts that have already taken place all over America – all with the same result…no indication of voter fraud.  Nevertheless, in its infinite wisdom, the Arizona State Legislature instituted a third, and unofficial, audit of the votes cast in November 2020.

A renegade firm by from Florida by the name of Voter Ninja (seriously), with no experience in statewide voter recount, has been conducting a bizarre recounting process including testing ballots for bamboo particles (which would prove that they came from China). Nevertheless, Republicans have been flocking to Arizona to see how they can gum up the electoral works in their respective states.

Once again, there is very little doubt that the 2022 local, state and federal elections will be subject to an unprecedented tsunami of challenges to the outcome of countless races. This will only further erode general confidence in the electoral process, thereby setting the stage for a disastrous 2024 presidential election.

Sometimes great empires end not with a bang, but with a whimper…

June 10, 2021

President Biden is now in Europe – his mission is to clean up the diplomatic and strategic mess that is part of the stained legacy of #45. Given that even a casual observer cannot be clear as to how long common sense will reside in the White House, the six other members of the G7 can be forgiven for their reluctance to fully embrace the notion that “America is back”.

That declaration by President Biden will certainly be met with the understandable – if unspoken- response, “Yes, but for how long”?

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Point of View Columns

Avoiding Amnesia

There are far too many voices calling for the end of the impeachment proceedings against 45. The thinking (if it can be called that) is that 45 is no longer in office and dredging up the facts of some 30 days ago will only create more division and delay the healing process that this country needs so badly.

This thinking might be worthy of consideration except for the fact that the authors of this fake line of thinking supported and accepted all the hateful, divisive and corrosive actions and rhetoric of 45 during his entire time in office. From Charlottesville to the confederate generals’ statuary controversy to his demonization of the Black Lives Matter movement, 45 has been a walking, talking toxic brew that spilled all over this country. 45 has been the root cause of the division that allowed QAnon and the Proud Boys and their ilk to grow and flourish, finally arriving in full bloom in the Capitol on 1.6.21.

There is no need to pay any attention to these fake calls for unity that are coming days late and many dollars short. And it should be noted that the members of this bogus chorus are almost all Republicans who do not want to go on the record supporting 45 and are also deathly afraid of casting an impeachment vote against 45 – who has already threatened “accountability” for those who dare to vote against him.

So it is left to the Democrats to make sure that this nation simply does not forget, much less forgive, what 45 did. It is important for history books tell the story right – that for at least two months before the election, as national polls became more bleak and predictive of his defeat, 45 started promoting the lie that the only way he could lose would be due to voter fraud. So, on 11.7.20 when it was confirmed that he had lost, 45 started promoting The Big Lie.

The Big Lie being that he had won the election overwhelmingly – even though he lost by 8 million votes – and that voter fraud, particularly in cities and states with large Black populations, was the reason for Joe Biden’s presumed (but actually fake) victory. And then 45 promoted The Big Lie every day, virtually ignoring the thousands of Americans who were falling ill and dying from the pandemic.

The Big Lie morphed into something even more pernicious when 45 started calling for the denizens of MAGA nation to come to Washington on 1.6.21. And it should be noted that was not a casual selection of a day – 45 knew that this was the day that the Electoral College vote would be confirmed by Congress. And in his fevered, damaged brain, 45 thought that he could bring a mob to D.C. to intimidate Congress to salvage his waning presidency.

The whole world – even the cowardly Republicans in Congress – know what happened next. 45 and his son and others whipped the mob into a frenzy and set that mob on its mission of disruption headed straight for Congress. The death and destruction that ensued is the bastard child of 45 and Congress should confirm his paternity of this horror for all time.

It is clear that 45 is going to be a presence – a fading presence, but a presence nevertheless. It is important that he be stripped of any legitimacy, if not by Congress, then by the people. And that means avoiding amnesia.

Anytime and every time that 45 speaks for the rest of his life he should be remembered as the President Who Attacked America.

Amnesia must be avoided at all costs to make sure that no would be tyrant tries to imitate 45 – after all the next imitator might succeed.

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