Sunday School included comments from folks talking about the Capitol insurrection, and Trump, and how we go to this point. One of the folks making the rounds was Mick Mulvaney, who held a number of positions in the Administration, including Chief of Staff. Here's a bit from his conversation with Chuck Todd on MTP.
Mulvaney said he doesn't know about the president's current state of mind, but he said the Trump of eight months ago or so would have dealt with things differently.
I thought that we'd never be here. I thought the president would be presidential. Clearly, that system has broken down. And whether or not the president is different or the people advising him are different or both, I don't know what's going on inside the Oval Office now, and I don't know what's going on inside the president's head.
Does anyone know what's going on in there?
For your Extra Credit, I highlighted the panel discussions on Fox News Sunday and on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, including this comment from Sarah Isgur, who once worked in the Justice Department during the Trump administration. In a conversation about the end of the Nixon administration, and the end of the current one,
Isgur noted that there's no one around this time like Howard Baker, back in the Nixon days.
There is no one who the president listens to. He is fundamentally different than Richard Nixon. In his farewell address in 1974, Richard Nixon said: I'm not a quitter, but I have to put the country first. That is not fundamentally who Donald Trump is, or else we wouldn't have had January 6. He incited an insurrection against the legislative branch. Mind you, our Declaration of Independence was to overthrow a tyrant who excited domestic insurrections amongst us, is what it said. Our entire Constitution is built to prevent tyranny from the executive branch against our seat of government. And like others have said, if this isn't an impeachable offense, I don't know what it is.
Honestly? Trump seems fundamentally different from every one of his predecessors, but maybe that's just me.
And in that regard, here's some presidential poetry, some OrangeVerse for you, from last Tuesday when he spoke not once, not twice, but three times, spewing free verse left and right. This snippet is from the middle open mic, at Joint Base Andrews, as he flew off to Texas to autograph the border wall. No, I'm not making that part up. But Trump surely is making this part up, proud as he is of his speech at the insurrection rally.
But they’ve analyzed
my speech and words
and my final paragraph,
my final sentence,
and everybody,
to the T,
thought it was
totally appropriate.
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
I was Wondering on Wednesday, for sure, about the impeachment activities that were taking place in the House, and the speeches, and the speakers, and hypocrisy and such. One thing that caught my eye was the proxy voters, the designated Representatives who were recording votes for the colleagues who were not in the Chamber. And then I learned this,
Members on both sides of the aisle voted by proxy, including Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw. That's notable, because he's been a very vocal opponent of proxy voting, saying things like this:
America is looking to its representatives to act like LEADERS with courage, not spineless sheep in hiding. We ask our grocers to work, our truckers to drive, and our nurses to risk their lives. Congress can show up to VOTE.
Sadly, Crenshaw himself was "unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency." I wonder, is he referring to the "spineless sheep in hiding emergency," or something else?
Ah yes, the hypocrisy. It's everywhere, really - no surprise - but this was just rich.
And then there was a new video from the president, stating with firm words and flimsy conviction that he condemns violence and that it has no place in his movement, or the country. That is a lie. He has been encouraging violence, and applauding it, since he was a candidate. He knows it, I know it, and you could know it too, if you read my post proving it. Here's an example from candidate Trump and one from president Trump.
February 1, 2016: At a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, IA, Trump told the crowd that... “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. There won’t be so much of them because the courts agree with us,” he said.
No place for violence in the movement, but I'll pay your legal fees? What the actual hell is that?
August 5, 2019: A 39-year-old Montana man was charged with felony assault for choking, slamming, and fracturing the skull of a 13-year-old boy who didn’t take his hat off for the national anthem. The man’s attorney told the local newspaper that Trump’s “rhetoric” led to the violent act. “His commander in chief is telling people that if they kneel, they should be fired, or if they burn a flag, they should be punished,” the lawyer said, referencing Trump’s harsh words against athletes like Colin Kaepernick who protested for social justice.
And, while many of us know his words aren't worth the teleprompter they're flashed on, people in his movement take them to heart, and act on them. Just like they did on January 6th.
All of that, and all of the rest of the news from the week, lead me to a less-than-celebratory TGIF post.
More than anything, though - I hope we get to next Wednesday, and through it - without any of the stuff we're being warned about actually happening. Attacks on state capitals; threats on members of Congress on both sides of the aisle; and the ongoing threat of more violence in DC, including the potential for improvised explosive devices - IEDs - to be used in our nation's capital. I hear that, and I don't even know how to react, whether to rage against the abject insanity of it, or hunker down with the curtains closed, waiting for the 'all clear' signal.
I thought that would be the last post of the week, but I was inspired, again, by the hypocrisy of it all, and that led to an Irony Board entry on the absurdity of the Rs going on television and talking about how they're being silenced and are unable to communicate, and how Big Tech should be liable for civil suits from folks who have been censored.
A North Dakota state representative has a bill to allow residents of the Peace Garden State to do just that. He went on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox to talk about it, and shared some risks of social media companies running amok.
If a website comes out and selectively publishes information or manipulates true information in order to create a certain desired narrative, this restrictive action can essentially amount to defamation.
And, there's the real irony - the selective publishing, the manipulation of the truth, the defamation he mentions.
Kading, remember, was talking on Sunday Morning Futures, just one of the FNC shows that had to run a tasty disclaimer - excuse me, a 'fact checking story,' correcting each show's lies.
It's hard to imagine how these folks say all of this stuff with straight faces, it really is.
See you later for Sunday School; I'm sure it's going to be an interesting time in the classrooms today.
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