Ideas
Written by Elizabeth Moon.
4,012 Americans died of COVID-19 on Thursday, January 7. Or, more accurately, 4,012 deaths from COVID were *reported* and showed up on this morning’s national COVID-death. Probably more were reported but too late to make the cut. Our national death-from-COVID total is now over 365,000.
On Wednesday, when Tuesday’s count had brought the deaths up to around 361,000, with a daily increase of 3,964, and a violent mob broke into the Capitol, disrupted the reading of the Electoral College votes, trashed Congress members’ offices, urinating on the carpets of many, stole uncounted items (a podium from the Capitol showed up on e-Bay), murdered a Capitol Police officer, injured others…at least 50 Republicans in Congress, after being moved to a safer place to finish that reading, refused to wear masks. Still.
They showed the same stubborn unconcern for the welfare of their colleagues as the mob showed for the welfare of Congressmembers and staff. They continued with their obdurate resistance to the results of the general election, insisting on slowing down the process–even in the midst of an emergency–to voice their asinine objections to what has heretofore been a routine part of an election cycle. Hours and hours of talking angrily (emotion spreads more virus farther.) Maskless and spreading a dangerous virus, if they happened to be contaminated (which they have been before.)
A mandatory COVID test should be given to every person who refused to mask, every day for the next 14 days, whether they’ve received the vaccine or not. Every one who tests positive should be immediately placed in mandatory quarantine under the observation of police.
Yeah, I know that won’t happen. It should, though. Moving on, selfie videos put on social media by the insurgents include a gal from Carolina who wants someone to shoot Joe Biden “between the eyes”, and it’s clear in the video she’s all for it and eager to watch. Others who want to “find Mike Pence and hang him.” (Personally, I’d like to find Mike Pence, lock him up in the same prison as Trump, and throw away the key, but since I’m committed to defending the Constitution, that option is a no-go. Funny thing about oaths of office: some of us take them seriously.)
We now know that Trump’s Pentagon purge and insertion of his agents resulted in the National Guard being barred from interrupting Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol. Maryland was willing to have their National Guard help…but they were refused. Capitol Police’s reasons still not clear, but obviously they were not briefed on the clear and known dangers and left out in the wind. How much of that was internal (Trump agents within the department) and how much from Congress itself (idiots like Hawley and Cruz) or from Trump down the chain of command, we don’t yet know, and must learn, down to every single name in every single chain of command.
Since Pence is unwilling to initiate Article 25, and Trump’s cabinet is fleeing away to cover their own butts and plot their return to power, while coordinating more skullduggery from a distance, I strongly urge including Pence in impeachment processes…if he cannot see, or doesn’t care, that Trump is now a clear and present danger to everyone’s security, worldwide, he’s either stupid or complicit. In either case he could do damage in the remaining days.
And in the meantime, a secure, private, but very well documented Inauguration is more appropriate than one on the Capitol steps with known assassins running around loose and security demonstrably as full of holes as the screen on the window beside me.
So you guys-and gals-gave us Cruz, but my state gave us Hawley…
1So is it a sin to pray that the mob in DC this week all die of the COVID? Because, well, not mentioning any names, but here’s hoping.
As my Congressman said, AMEN and AWOMAN!
Thank you Elizabeth for your excellent summary of the day’s events, as well as an insightful connecting of the dots. I would only add to your comment:
“… he’s (Pence) either stupid or complicit.”
Or both.
2The GOP has not changed at all. The Senate may have been embarrassed into voting to approve the election, but everything’s back to normal today, move along, nothing to see here. Biden, Pelosi and Harris will work on National efforts for the next two years, we in Texas need gather plenty of good and able candidates for the 2022 elections. Surely in a state of 30,000,000 there are Democrats who could beat Abbott, Patrick, Paxton, et al!!!
3It’s too bad public caning and time in the stocks isn’t a thing anymore. Minimum time and expense with maximum humiliation…
4It looks to me as if a few (minority) Republicans would like to come back into the game, but the bad’uns are still there, hooves planted in the mud and hauling hard the wrong way. Once again, too, the few decent-maybe Republicans lack the spirit or the courage or whatever it is to just break loose and work with Dems to kick out the bad’uns and then go back to being normal Republicans under another name. They’re smart enough to see that a third party always splits a vote, but they’re not smart enough to work outside their own label.
Does anyone have a list of the names that Trump put in a couple of weeks ago? I don’t, and don’t know how to get it out of the internet. Were any of those appointments military, or just civilian (like “acting” ….the Acting Defense Secretary (name?) who ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of the Biden Administration? We need specific names (first, last, position, rank if military). I do know now that General Daniel Hokanson is the 29th Chief of National Guard and that is now a Joint Chiefs of Staff position and puts him on the National Security Council and as Military Advisor to the President. In my day, that position did not exist, let along as a JCS membership.
And I desperately need to do some other work–deadlines approaching.
5I’m not great at this but this looks like a helpful source.
6https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/
Outdoor inauguration? Maybe not. Weather front coming up from the south. Lately, thats the origin of all the fronts to hit the Capitol area with precip and wind, etc. Good weather or not, I prefer the ceremony should be indoors just out of common sense. Reagan did his second inaugural indoors. It was too cold and snowy for him. JFK had the same weather and even worse and he made it through the expeirence.
7My coven right now is that the orange shitgibbon will write blanket parsons for himself and all his supporters. *That’s* why I want him out immediately.
8Damned autocorrect! I’m not a witch! My *concern* is that I don’t want to see pardons!
9Definitely no outdoor ceremony, but do not hold in Capitol due to possibility that remote control incendiary devices may have been hidden there Wednesday, or sniper biding his time. Should be small in secret location. They’ve already threatened to be back with more fire power. I am worried sick about this.
10djw says @9 … “I’m not a witch!”
yeah, that’s what Christine O’Donnell said, too.
Where were you last Samhain? Do you have any public trials and tests to show you aren’t a witch??
11Have a swearing ceremony in private, on live TV, streaming in the net, and important foreign news services.
LBJ was sworn in on AF1.
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