“I miss Trump.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an interview with Laura Ingraham on FOX News
“I want to go in and be a thoughtful disrupter in Sacramento. We need to change the system, and I want to change the system for the positive.”
Caitlyn Jenner, in a June 10 appearance on “The View”
During a tense exchange with the show’s hosts, Jenner criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsome, ranted about immigration and refused to agree that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
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“To have to see these people every day, and they don’t have our back. Something as simple as just trying to find out what happened, so that it doesn’t happen again, because my fear is this was the tip of the iceberg. You have a lot of people that are radicalized, that this is exactly what they wanted to do. And it’s – by there being no accountability – it’s emboldening them.”
James Blassingame, a Capitol Hill police officer on repercussions of the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, in a PBS interview
“‘Patriotic education’ isn’t education; it’s propaganda. And it’s honestly not that patriotic to raise the next generation on whitewashed, simpleminded half-truths just because it makes you feel good.”
Kevin M. Kruse, history professor at Princeton University, about Texas House Bill 2497, which would establish a panel of nine political appointees tasked with educating students about Texas history
The measure, House Bill 2497, earned bipartisan support this session, passing the House by a vote of 124 to 19, and 22 to 9 in the Senate. It establishes a panel of nine political appointees tasked with educating about Texas history, whose work will mostly be found in informational pamphlets given to Texans receiving driver’s licenses. The committee will “promote awareness” of Texas’ past as it relates to “the history of prosperity and democratic freedom in this state,” according to the bill.
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I’ve often noted that conservatives can be incredible hypocrites. For years they said no divorcee would be elected to the presidency. Then they got Ronald Reagan, the nation’s first divorced Chief Executive, whose wife was the nation’s first divorced First Lady. They dubbed Bill Clinton a draft dodger and condemned him for protesting against the Vietnam War while he was in college. Then they elected George W. Bush who earned a comfortable spot in the Texas National Guard in 1968 and failed to complete his tenure. They also elected Dick Cheney who claimed he had “other priorities” during the 1960s.
Conservative hypocrisy has reared its bigoted head once again – this time in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Rick Scott and Tommy Tuberville submitted the correspondence to Garland complaining about what they perceive to be a double standard in punishment by the U.S. Department of Justice against the January 6 Capitol Hill rioters. In contrast, they declare, many of the various protestors to the George Floyd killing who became violent haven’t met the same degree of discipline.
In part, the letter states:
“DOJ’s (U.S. Department of Justice) apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach. DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated. No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.”
Please. Spare me the anxiety.
The five angry White male senators don’t seem to understand the difference in the two events. While some of the Floyd protestors devolved into rioting and vandalism, the original intent was to demonstrate against police violence; a recurring dilemma in the U.S. The intent of the Capitol Hill rioters, however, was to disrupt congressional business and kill someone – most notably Vice-President Mike Pence.
Conservatives have warned about threats to national security posed by Islamic vigilantes and illegal immigrants for as long as I can remember. But, these weren’t the people who stormed Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, as Pence oversaw certification of the 2020 presidential election. The rioters were mostly White people – many of them former military and/or law enforcement – from across the country who felt their dear leader, Donald Trump, had been cheated out of a second term by a corrupt electoral system. I can almost hear Al Gore and Hillary Clinton laughing.
But I don’t recall bands of angry liberals storming Capitol Hill in January 2001, demanding Al Gore be lynched. I also don’t remember seeing similar renegades bursting into Capitol Hill in January 2017, calling for Joe Biden’s head. And it’s obvious to most of us with more than half a brain that the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections were fraudulent. Yet conservatives denounced anyone voicing their disdain to those two events as whiners and sore losers. We were justified, though, in protesting. But we never got violent. No one smashed windows, kicked in doors and hollered for blood to be spilled. Neither Al Gore nor Hillary Clinton stood before angry supporters, urging for violent retribution against Congress.
It’s ironic, however, that Merrick Garland is in a leadership position. Five years ago President Obama nominated him to replace Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans – who held a majority in the Senate – refused to grant Garland the decency of a fair hearing. Yet, they rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett last year, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Again – hypocrisy in action.
Perspicacious
Adjective
Latin, 17th century
Highly perceptive, keen. Discerning, shrewd
Example: My perspicacious nature showed up early in childhood when I began reading around the age of 2.
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Don’t mess with a dog lover! On Monday, May 31, a brown bear with cubs tried to invade the back yard of a residential home in Bradbury, California. The family’s 4 dogs happened to be outside and did what…well, what dogs normally do when there’s an intruder. They started barking ferociously.
That’s when home surveillance video caught 17-year-old Hailey Morinico rushing outside and literally shoving the massive bear off of the fence. She injured her finger in the process, but managed to get the bear to leave.
Don’t try this at home, my fellow citizens! But, like I said, don’t mess with someone’s dogs!
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Last month, Facebook’s Oversight Board upheld a two-year suspension of former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6.
“We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year,” Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs for Facebook, said in a blog post.
The announcement read, in part:
“We are today announcing new enforcement protocols to be applied in exceptional cases such as this, and we are confirming the time-bound penalty consistent with those protocols which we are applying to Mr. Trump’s accounts. Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year.”
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“Are Peter Daszak and Tony Fauci under criminal investigation? We can only hope they are. They certainly deserve it. At this point, we can’t say for sure. We do know that Fauci hasn’t simply lied about the origins of COVID, pretending to know things he could not know. He has also lied about vaccines in key ways.”
Tucker Carlson, in response to newly-released emails showing that Dr. Anthony Fauci had tried to work with Chinese health officials to learn the origins of the COVID-19 virus
Dr. Peter Daszak is a British zoologist who focuses on disease ecology.
“As I said that day, Jan. 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office, and I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye about that day. But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.”
Former Vice-President Mike Pence, speaking at the Hillsborough County Lincoln-Reagan Dinner in New Hampshire
Pence went on to say, “I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans. Or allow Democrats or their allies in the media to distract our attention from a new administration intent on further dividing our country to advance their radical agenda.”
It’s important to note that the Capital Hill rioters were chanting to kill Pence, as they invaded the Capital on January 6.
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“This is an issue that galvanizes, particularly minority voters, and speaking as a Black American, someone who lived through the age of Jim Crow segregation, someone who has seen court challenges where African Americans have had to use the Supreme Court … people have fought and lost their lives to have access to the ballot, to vote. There should be no retrogression in terms of making sure people have access to the franchise and unfettered access.”
Michael Adams, a professor of political science at Texas Southern University, about the Texas Legislature’s stringent voting regulations
“I think we’re doing a great job in terms of recruiting the right kinds of people, providing access to people from every corner, every walk of life in this country.”
Gen. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, criticizing Sen. Ted Cruz for his recent demeaning comments about the U.S. military
Austin also insisted that diversity “must be a part of who we are.”
“This sacred right is under assault … with an intensity and aggressiveness we have not seen in a long, long time. It is simply un-American. It’s not, however, sadly, unprecedented.”
President Joe Biden, on efforts by Republican-dominated state legislatures’ to limit voting rights
Chief Writing Wolf 