“The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”
No. The above quote is not from, say, Nancy Pelosi. It’s part of an actually eloquent, accurate and honest address that Kevin McCarthy delivered on the House floor on January 13, just seven days after that attack on Congress by mob rioters.
McCarthy is now saying that Trump has been “cleared” of any responsibility for the January 6 armed insurrection. House Select Committee leaders Bennie
Thompson and Liz Cheney say McCarthy’s statement is simply false. Thompson and Cheney say the committee continues to gather evidence, evidence that includes McCarthy’s own statement on January 13.
Responsibility. Attack. Mob rioters. Denounced. Facts. President Trump.
McCarthy said it. Now he is denying that Trump bears responsibility. He is denying there was an “attack.” He is denying that the people responsible for January 6 were mob rioters. He is denying not only the “facts” of the insurrection, he is denying the existence and even concept of “facts.” He is denying there was an insurrection.
That’s where we are. Lie. Deny. Deflect. Gaslight. Pre-emptively accuse your opponents of that which you are clearly guilty. Tell people they did not see what they saw. Tell them they did not hear what they heard.
And…it works.
It works so well that a “Justice for J6” rally is being planned for Saturday, September 18 in D.C. The planned “rally” is in support of the criminal rioters who conspired to overthrow the results of a free and fair election and effectively launched an attempted coup against the government of the United States.
Intelligence agencies say current online extremist rhetoric is similar to levels that preceded January 6. They say we should take it “very seriously” this time. Why didn’t we take it “very seriously” last time?
New, cynical and purely partisan voter suppression laws go into effect today in Texas. I said voter suppression laws, not voter ID laws. People of good will who believe in representative democracy should take this shameless power grab “very seriously” as well.
And it’s encouraging that the DOJ and Attorney General Merrick Garland are confronting Texas’s new and clearly unconstitutional abortion law very seriously.
It’s impossible to take anything Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says seriously. He said yesterday that vaccination is a personal decision that affects no one else. He said that.
And…that’s why nineteen months into this pandemic, new COVID infections during the week leading up to Labor Day were up 300 percent over that same time frame a year ago. 300 percent. And we are once again losing an average of 1,500 American lives each day.
People who simply refuse to win are losers.
