I’ll save the other Memorial Day cartoons for later, but Ed Hall provides a fitting starting point for looking at yesterday’s vote, in which the GOP spared us the painful burden of proving that there was no insurrection, that it was, in fact, BLM and Antifa crisis actors pretending to be Trump supporters peacefully behaving like tourists.
Or something.
We’ll never know, because only 61% of the Senators who voted favored forming a commission, which sounds like a lot but isn’t the 60 votes needed.
Here’s the 11 who didn’t vote on the measure at all, which is to say they abstained, emphasis on “stained:”
The surprise is Patty Murray, who flew home Friday morning for an unspecified “family emergency.”
Toomey also had a “family commitment,” according to CNN’s Manu Raju, but would have voted in favor.
I’m not doubting it, but the notion that their staying to vote wouldn’t have changed the outcome is a little short on the patriotic fervor.
Every witness matters. Every vote counts, even in a losing cause.
Even in a lost cause.
The role of honor among Republicans — such as it is — consists of Lisa Murkowksi (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Mitt Romney (Utah) and Rob Portman (Ohio.)
They weren’t enough, but at least they are among the righteous.
There’s been a meme floating around for several weeks, comparing Jan 6 with Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, pointing out that an unpunished uprising is simply a dress rehearsal.
But Hitler was tried, convicted of treason and spent five years in prison, where he produced “Mein Kampf” and a better plan for gaining power.
Pat Bagley offers a chilling vision, and it’s worth pointing out that, while we allowed Franco to live out his life and career in Spain, and Mussolini was killed by his own people as Italy tottered on the brink of defeat, Hitler’s Germany was, as a matter of policy, pounded into complete defeat, as was Japan, by Allies who had learned at Versailles what happens when you accept an armistice in place of unconditional surrender.
Nick Anderson (Tribune) offers a light-hearted view of things, but the fact is that Hitler was not asked if he agreed to be tried for the putsch, nor, had he lived, would he have been consulted about whether or not to hold trials at Nuremberg.
Drew Sheneman (AMS) explains the matter in less comic terms.
Again, if the incursion was no different than a normal tourist visit, or if it truly was led by BLM and Antifa provocateurs, the GOP should be eager to expose the truth.
There’s no lack of witnesses to explain their presence: Some 500 people have been charged in connection with the insurrection.
Bring them in. Let them tell the commission what brought them to the Capitol that day. Check their backgrounds to confirm their BLM/Antifa origins, or whatever their origins were.
As has been pointed out several times, Congress was a lot more curious about what happened in Benghazi than they have been about what happened in their own building.
Bill Bramhall offers this reflection on McConnell’s leadership in blocking the commission.
Michael de Adder (Counterpoint) is less generous, pointing out that Brian Sicknick’s mother came to Congress and begged Senators to investigate his death. McConnell and his cronies not only spit on Sicknick’s memory but insulted his mother, and, if they didn’t directly spray Brian in the face, they certainly didn’t do much to honor him.
It is a second assault, on him, on his family, and on anyone who pretends to support law and order in America.
For which reason I’m giving former Orlando, Fla, Police Chief Val Demings (D-Fla) the first word in this collection of Twitter responses:
I’d like to agree with Cheney, but I don’t know who, or what, history will remember.
To repeat my mother’s oft-quoted words about living through WWII, you have to remember that, at the time, we didn’t know who was going to win.
Christopher Weyant presents the situation for now, but that’s current events.
Eventually, what happened on January 6, and what happened on May 28, will harden into history, and we all know that history is written by the victors, whoever that turns out to be.
So I guess we’ll see, and, as noted here before, a lot will harden with the mid-term elections.
The issue of whether Democrats hold power or the Republicans regain Congress will determine the fate of the filibuster and of Biden’s policy efforts, but that’s only the beginning.
Much of it will take place in the Congressional races, but much of it will also take place in the various states, where the GOP is hardening its efforts not only to suppress opposing votes and to gerrymander its opponents into irrelevance, but also to give secretaries of state the power and intent to cancel any results that don’t align with party goals.
Phil Ochs advocated walking away from the Vietnam war and refusing to “serve your country in its suicide,” insisting that “this country is too young to die.”
But letting Kaiser Bill up off the floor was a mistake in 1919, and assuming that Nixon’s resignation was the end of the battle in 1974 was another.
The problem with democracy is that the battle is never over.
Eisenhower insisted German civilians be brought to the camps to witness what had been done, so that nobody could ever claim it hadn’t happened.
They came and they saw.
And yet there are those who downplay and deny what happened.
And so, as Steve Benson (Creators) points out, here we are, and the GOP is no more eager to silence its growing number of fascisti than it is to investigate the open treason of January 6 and the Big Lie that inspired it.
Where do we go from here?
Where do you want to go?
Val Demings insists that nobody who voted against the Commission should dare claim to support police.
I’d also suggest that they’d have to have one helluva nerve to take a holiday on Monday.
Well done, Mike, as usual. This leaves me speechless, or with far too many words.
Well done indeed – and the image of Bill Barr smirking and saying “History is written by the winners.” gives us a bit of hope – cause -How’s that workin’ out for ya now, Billy boy ?