Thursday, May 27, 2021

Senator McConnell Blocks Jan. 6th Commission


House Majority Leader Mitch McConnel led the effort blocking the formation of a January 6th Commission.  His actions prevent a deeper, independent look at the insurrection and how its re-occurrence might be prevented.

The mother of Brian Sicknick, the Capital police officer who died after the rioting, pleaded with Red Team members of Congress for a bi-partisan commission.

"Not having a January 6 Commission to look into exactly what occurred is a slap in the faces of all the officers who did their jobs that day,” said Gladys Sicknick, who urged lawmakers to visit her son’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

Indications are Capital Police officers are in an abusive relationship, where their voice, mental and physical health do not matter.

"We have heard all of this support for police, police, police, and then your own police force is battered and bruised and now you drag your feet?" said another officer.

Optimizing a political party for the ego needs of Donald Trump is a very disturbing thing.  Senator McConnell is proving to be one of Trump's most powerful enablers.  Sad. 

Update 5-31-21:  Senate Republicans don't want an investigation to get to the root causes of the January 6th insurrection but demanded an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.   

The attack was the worst on the Capitol in 200 years. The protesters interrupted the certification of Biden’s win over Trump, constructed a mock gallows in front of the Capitol and called for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence, who was overseeing the proceedings inside. Lawmakers hid on the floor of the House balcony as the rioters tried to break in, and senators evacuated their chamber mere minutes before it was ransacked. 

Irony enters when riot inciter Senator Josh Hawley wants COVID-19 origin information released.

"Let the American people see. Let the American people decide ... share the facts."

Those words could easily be said in favor of a January 6th bipartisan investigation.  That's what frosts this independent voter.  Both events killed people.  Both should be investigated for human understanding.  

Update 5-31-21:  Esquire columnist said "By failing to follow in the footsteps of these other bi-partisan commissions (some of which were related to foreign terrorist attacks, some domestic like the Jan. 6 insurrection), today’s Republican senators have put party above politics at a level so high, it should terrify us all. The worst is certainly yet to come.

Update 6-2-21:  McConnell further warmed deadly snake Donald Trump, who is telling friends he will be reinstated as President by August.  As there is no method for him to be reinstated, some consider Trump delusional.  That was clear long before January 6th, the day Trump unleashed his loyalists on the Capital. 

When mental pathology is accompanied by criminal-mindedness, however, the combination can make individuals far more dangerous than either alone.  

He is certainly of an autocratic disposition because his extreme narcissism does not allow for equality with other human beings, as democracy requires.

His emotional fragility, manifested in extreme intolerance of realities that do not fit his wishful view of the world, predispose him to psychotic spirals.

If one cannot have love, one resorts to respect. And when respect is unavailable, one resorts to fear. Trump is now living through an intolerable loss of respect: rejection by a nation in his election defeat. Violence helps compensate for feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy and lack of real productivity.

The treatment is removal of exposure.  For healing, I usually recommend three steps: (1) Removal of the offending agent (the influential person with severe symptoms). (2) Dismantling systems of thought control—common in advertising but now also heavily adopted by politics. And (3) fixing the socioeconomic conditions that give rise to poor collective mental health in the first place.

The challenge is disconnecting the Red Team from their severely damaged leader

When the mind is hijacked for the benefit of the abuser, it becomes no longer a matter of presenting facts or appealing to logic.  

That's the state of the Republican Party.  I said optimized to meet the ego needs of Donald Trump, but hijacked for the benefit of an abusive Trump is more succinct.

Update 6-27-21:  Republican House leadership finally met with Capital police officers and the mother of Officer Brian Sicknick.

Update 7-1-21:  Only two Red team members of the House of Representatives voted for a select commission to review the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

Update 7-21-21:  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled his five nominees from the House committee reviewing the insurrection.  Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) "accused McCarthy of trying to “prevent” Americans from knowing the truth of how the Capitol attack occurred."

“The American people deserve to know what happened. The people who did this must be held accountable, it must be an investigation that is sober and gets to the facts,” she said, adding that, however “at every turn the minority leader has tried to get the people not to know what happened.”

Gross incompetence is all Republican leaders have to offer on the January 6th insurrection.   

Update 8-2-21:  The Red Team continues its shameless behavior regarding the January 6th insurrection.  Mitch is still slinking around in the background after Trump followers unleashed hell on the U.S. Capital.  

Update 8-5-21:  The Red Team "made a call to shift all blame away from Trump."  Independent voters fled the Trump train after he botched the COVID pandemic.  Deflecting the Jan. 6th insurrection with outright lies will keep independent voters away.  It took more than mean tweets to drive voters away.  It took Trump's callous indifference to people's lives, something the Texas legislature shares.  

Update 8-27-21:  Ex-President Donald Trump claimed executive privilege for himself and colleagues in regard to the House Select Committee on January 6ths request for documents from the White House and numerous government agencies. Capital Police officers filed a lawsuit accusing Trump, the Proud Boys and violent extremist groups of causing the deadly Jan. 6th riot/insurrection.

Update 9-1-21:  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened telecom companies that respond to House subpoenas for phone records regarding the Jan. 6th riot/insurrection.

Update 9-4-21:  "Republicans are doing everything they can to thwart Congress’ inquiry into the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol, including by threatening to purge their party of members who participate in the select committee tasked with that investigation."

Update 9-12-21:   The committee may get to the bottom of the Jan.6th event with the help of two Republican members.

Update 11-1-21:  Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich claimed the people who stormed the Capitol were "agitators not associated with" Trump.

Update 12-4-21:  Wingnuts are so emboldened they are running for office. Legislative agendas are not needed for the Red Team, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

Update 12-13-21:  The January 6th Capital insurrection was driven from the top according to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.  This explains the Red Team's intransigence on the investigation.

Update 12-20-21:  Trump is nervous as the House select committee investigating Jan 6 revealed an "alarming strategy to stop Biden’s certification on 6 January, involving nearly the entire federal government and lieutenants operating from the Willard hotel in Washington"

Update 1-3-22:   House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is calling the committee investigating January 6th a "partisan political weapon."  The Sunday letter to his colleagues came after the public learned President Trump sat on his keister in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the Capital attack on television, ignoring two requests from daughter Ivanka to intervene.  

Update 1-13-22:  Red Team members refuse to cooperate with the Jan. 6th Committee.  

Rep. Liz Cheney said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was trying to "cover up" what happened at the Capitol riot by refusing to work with the House committee investigating it.

How deep is the rabbit hole?  The public has no right to know.

Update 4-27-22:  A year later the Trump White House almost immediately shifted blame for the Capital Insurrection.  

Leaked texts have unveiled a Trump aide's plan to help the then-president deflect anger over the Capitol riot.  Jason Miller outlined tweets for Trump to send out, blaming "ANTIFA" and "crazed leftists" for the violence.  Miller also proposed a tweet accusing the "fake news media" of demonizing "peaceful and innocent MAGA supporters."

Did Mitch get any of these communications?

Update 1-2-23:  Senior Trump aide Hope Hicks wrote after Jan. 6th:

"...We all look like domestic terrorists now.”

That they did.  Many still do.

Update 1-16-23:  Trump called the Capital rioters "great patriots" and their deserved prison sentences "a disgrace."  Spoken like a Chief Domestic Terrorist.

Update 10-17-23:   Insane Red Jim Jordan is up for Speaker of the House.   Jordan helped plan the January 6th insurrection.