* We need a blue-ribbon, Capitol1/6 Commission—just as we needed a 9/11 Commission. It’s about threats to this country from terrorists, both foreign as well as domestic. And it’s about digging deeper into the failure of the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies in order to prevent another democracy-threatening, traumatizing insurrection. And it’s about what, exactly, was the former president’s role—before and during the insurrection?
We know that there remain insurrectionists, their cult leader and enabling GOPsters. So it’s hardly surprising that the Trumplican establishment, including the spineless Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, are against such a commission. Scott even voted against certifying the 2020 election results. They disingenuously dismiss the idea as partisan politics. “It’s designed to be used as a partisan political weapon,” deadpanned Rubio.
However, Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, cut to the bottom-line chase. “This is about finding the truth and addressing the vulnerabilities of our security apparatus,” stated Katko. That’s hardly a partisan goal.
One other factor not noted by outspoken Republicans: Such a commission would be a damaging distraction to the GOP just as control of Congress is at stake in next year’s mid-term elections.
* “If Donald Trump decides to run in 2024 again, he’s going to be the Republican nominee.”–Sen Marco Rubio, on the “con man” appeal.
* No, you can’t make this up—even during the rhetorical bombast of the Trump-GOP era. It was prompted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to maintain a mask mandate on the House floor—because of concerns that some Republican members may not be vaccinated—didn’t go over well with the usual suspects. Prominent among them: outrageously outspoken Trump House toady Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. “This woman is mentally ill,” declared Taylor Greene. “We can look back in a time of history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens—so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” Equating mask-wearing with the holocaust? That’s, alas, exactly the type of rhetorical abuse we’ve come to expect from such self-serving, loony Trump enablers.
* Approximately 8 percent of the 400-plus colleges that will require vaccinations this fall are in states won by Donald Trump in 2020.
* A photo portrait of Trump now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. It’s among the customs associated with the pantheon of presidents past—from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to, alas, Donald J. Trump. Also part of presidential tradition is a presidential library. We know it’s coming, even if the honoree didn’t read much beyond tabloids and a Teleprompter.