We started the morning with a nice dusting of snow, which is fairly unusual for Northeast Mississippi. It had all melted by the afternoon, but it has nevertheless been a perfect day for hibernating. That’s part of the reason this is late. The other part is I’m just lazy.
But we’re here now, so let’s get to it. Suffice to say, the Big To-Do that went down at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., is still dominating everyone’s attention. A large number of the rioters who were dumb enough to either let themselves be photographed or they themselves were dumb enough to post on Twitter are having to answer to the FBI. People who were dumb enough to brag about it are losing their jobs because, be honest, who wants to employ a dangerous insurrectionist.
Questions about just how such a thing could have occurred have led to two Capitol police officers being placed on suspension while 10-15 others are being investigated. A number of ex and active military and police from across the country were amongst the crowd invading the Capitol, and the accusation going around is elements within the Capitol police allowed the rioters unfettered access to the Capitol. The cops themselves are saying requests for back-up from officers on the scene were ignored.
I honestly don’t know if there is a serious discussion that the tussle was organized in any way, but there does seem to be the suggestion that it wasn’t as spontaneous as originally thought. Regardless, it’s definitely proving to be much less popular across the country than the participants (or organizers, if they exist) probably thought. Along with the arrests and newly opened job positions, Congressional cheerleaders are catching serious hell. Most of the opprobrium seems to concentrate on Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Representatives Lauren Boebert and Mo Brooks. Between calls for censure by their colleagues and demands from local papers to step down, they’re not having a good week.
This has also had ramifications on social media. For one, right-wing Twitter clone Parler had to shut down as Amazon Web Services told them they need to cut out all that “threatening the lives of political opponents” and they said something about free speech. It’d take someone with a better handle on how those things work and more concern to explain how it all works out, but the people in charge of Parler say they will rise again once someone agrees they’re not too toxic to host.
An even bigger seismic bomb was dropped when, after 12 years of being a complete asshole, Twitter permanently banned Trump’s account. The last thing we heard from him was that he would not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, which is the closest we’ll probably come to him admitting he lost. To that extent, the public hasn’t heard a peep from him in almost five days. We’re told he enjoyed the Capitol siege and is seriously put out with Mike Pence refusing to change the outcome of the electoral votes, which he couldn’t do anyway.
Tired of his shit, the Democratic Party is pushing to get him out of office even though he has less than 10 days left to go. The main idea is to keep him from running again and preventing him from taking advantage of the benefits ex-presidents enjoy. They tried to get Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, basically saying he wasn’t fit for the gig, but House Republicans blocked it. So they’re going with Plan B, impeachment. They’re set to enter articles of impeachment Wednesday morning and they’re saying they’ve got the votes to get it done.
It’s up for debate that Trump encouraged the riots but he certainly isn’t doing anything to discourage them. The FBI is warning folks that pro-Trump groups are planning to raise hell next week in order to disrupt Biden’s inauguration, as well as “protests” in state capitols across the country. Remember, there isn’t anything they can do about it, Biden will be the next President barring some Nixonesque shenanigans. There really doesn’t seem to be any point to it besides making people dislike them more.
But I guess that’s conservative politics nowadays. Futile gestures and petulant displays for a guy who wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.
Dear Y'all 