“The Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Louisiana has unanimously voted to censure Senator Bill Cassidy for his vote cast earlier today to convict former President Donald J. Trump on the impeachment charge.”
Louisiana State Republican Party, in a statement condemning recently-elected U.S. Senator Cassidy for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump
Cassidy was only one of seven Republican senators to vote along with Democrats to impeach Trump.
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“President Trump may not know a lot about the framers, but they certainly knew a lot about him. Given the framers’ intense focus on danger to elections and the peaceful transfer of power, it is inconceivable that they designed impeachment to be a dead letter in the President’s final days in office, when opportunities to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power would be most tempting and most dangerous as we just saw. Thus, as a matter of history and original understanding, there is no merit to President Trump’s claim that he can incite an insurrection and then insist weeks later that the Senate lacks the power to even hear evidence at a trial, to even hold a trial.”
Rep. Jaime Raskin, in his opening statement during Donald Trump’s impeachment trial
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This week Capitol Hill police officer Brian D. Sicknick was honored in the Capitol Rotunda. Sicknick was caught up in the January 6 riots where he sustained serious injuries and died later.
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“This categorical statement surely would have surprised the Framers of the First Amendment, who believed in freedom of speech but not so much in democracy. The Framers of our constitutional system thought they were building a ‘republic,’ with limited suffrage and many checks on ‘democracy.”
Alan Dershowitz, claiming that the current impeachment of Donald Trump is an attack on free speech and arguing that freedom of speech is “essential to keeping it a republic, but not necessarily a democracy.”
“If you’re going to pursue this, and you wanna start calling witnesses, and you want to drag this thing out, it would be fair to have Kamala Harris’ tape play where she bailed people out of jail. What more could you do to incite future violence, than to pay the bail of the people who broke up the shops and beat up the cops. How’s that not inciting future violence? Be careful what you wish for my Democratic colleagues; be careful what you wish for.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the current impeachment of former President Donald Trump
“I haven’t even looked at what all she’s done. I’d have to hold back a statement on that. Travel in this weather it’s been a little rough looking at any news or whatever.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, regarding Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene
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“The Devil made me do it!”
You have to understand something about the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. They’re not entirely responsible for their actions. They had merely responded to the words of their newly-formed deity, Donald Trump. In the hours leading up to the siege, Trump had infused them with idea that he had been wronged by the voting process; that the 2020 elections had been manipulated by covert gangs of leftist forces determined to enforce abortions and gun confiscations upon helpless, red-blooded, bible-carrying Christian American citizens to ensure his loss. He was a victim, Trump maintained, and vicariously so were his minions.
CHARGE!!!!!!!!!
Thus, the Trumpians had been victimized by the same queer-loving renegades and they were justified in storming the Capitol, tearing through offices, screaming like children told to come in for dinner, threatening others because they got their feelings hurt – all while dressed like ghosts of the Civil War and refugees from a Comic-Con conference gone wrong.
Please!
The Capitol Hill warriors are no more victims of enraged rhetoric than porn stars are of poor script-writing. For years conservatives have proclaimed the tenets of individual freedom and personal responsibility. They declared such values in reactive angst to a welfare society and relentless victimhood proclamations.
They loathed when non-White people bemoaned centuries of Euro-colonial oppression and systemic racism. They rolled their eyes at the thought of women hollering about sexual harassment in the workplace and on college campuses. They snickered at queer folks complaining of innate homophobia on the job and in school.
Then the U.S. Congress met on January 6, 2021 to certify Joe Biden as the winner of last year’s presidential contest, and – as Dante Alighieri once wrote – all hell broke loose.
The Trumpian crowd became maddened by the process and felt they had no other recourse but to subvert that constitutional mechanism in the most violent manner possible. Their voices and votes had been ignored and they had to stop the madness.
So, in the name of Ronald Reagan, where the hell was all that talk of personal responsibility? Where were the people to take ownership of themselves and their actions? In other words, why do the Capitol Hill rioters suddenly see themselves as victims of…well, anything?!
They all sound like a bunch of – oh, God! A bunch of minorities, women and queers! Pass the rifle and heaven forbid! Now these “victims” have placed themselves in the same category as tree-loving, pot-smoking, Muslim-loving liberals!
What’s going to happen next? The magnetic poles will switch sides – like communist traitors – and life as we know will extinguish itself?
Again – please!
I personally don’t care to hear the anguished state of mind of these mentally- challenged pencil-dick and cavern-cunt imps. What happened with last year’s presidential elections is something known as democracy. It’s the sustenance upon which civilized societies survive. We cannot exist without it. The goons who stormed the Capitol three weeks ago didn’t fall victim to the verbiage of Donald Trump; they were victims of their own damned stupidity. If they truly were swayed by Trumpian oratory, they are as gullible as a child believing in Santa Claus. They roared into that building because what was left of their brain cells had perished in the swamp of their own hysteria.
It’s just so incredibly interesting that these right-wing extremists who wrap themselves in the American flag and cry freedom – while waving the loser traitorous Confederate flag – are suddenly helpless and violated. They couldn’t help themselves. Their faux president told them to do it.
The reality is quite simple: they’re violent and they’re stupid. But they aren’t victims.
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“Boy, were we all stupid to believe he actually stood for Equal Justice? His corrupt friends all come first.”
Joe Maldonado-Passage (a.k.a. Joe Exotic), in response to not receiving a pardon from Donald Trump
Maldonado-Passage is serving a 22-year prison sentence for plotting to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin, among other charges.
“I just got off the phone with Bed Bath & Beyond. They’re dropping MyPillow. Just got off the phone not five minutes ago. Kohl’s, all these different places.”
Mike Lindell, founder of MyPillow, about major retail stores deciding not to stock his products anymore
Lindell, a strong Trump supporter, helped to pay a $2 million bond for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of killing 2 men and wounding a third in Wisconsin in August 2020.
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“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, about the mob of Donald Trump supporters who invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6
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“A new report says that some far-right protesters have discussed posing as members of the National Guard to infiltrate the inauguration — the way Democrats infiltrated two weeks ago and put on MAGA clothing.”
Maria Bartiromo, claiming Capitol Hill rioters were actually Democrats disguised as Trump supporters
“Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms – they’re not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, claiming multiculturalism is authoritarianism
“Looking forward to working on this important designation honoring one of the greatest Presidents in American History. This legislative session I will be sponsoring an amendment to rename U.S. Highway 27 as the ‘President Donald J. Trump Highway,’ This great highway runs through the heartland of Florida in the State that President Trump calls home.”
Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R-Fla.), on his proposed legislation to rename the U.S. 27 Route in Florida as the “President Donald J. Trump Highway”
Rep. Sabatini told the Orlando Sentinel that he chose Route 27 because it passes through Lake County, his home district.
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Have you ever had a friend with whom you disagree on something? You know what I mean – someone you’ve known for a while; shared things with; commiserated with; know some of their family; treated to lunch or dinner for their birthdays. I have a few of those friends. As a bonafide introvert, I don’t have many friends in the first place, so I value those relationships I’ve managed to maintain over any length of time.
I had one such friend, Pete*, until recently. He and I have known each other for over 30 years. Ironically, we attended the same parochial grade school in Dallas. I didn’t know him back then, as he’s three years younger. Even more curious is that our fathers had known each other; they grew up in the same East Dallas neighborhood and attended the same high school. When Pete’s father died several years ago, my father was heartbroken, as the two hadn’t spoken in a while. I attended the funeral service at a church in downtown Dallas. In turn, Pete attended my father’s memorial service in 2016; his sister and her young daughter joined him.
Pete used to host annual Christmas gatherings at his apartment; his sister and her two sons, along with many of that family’s mutual friends, joining us. In effect, I became part of their family. I was fond of Pete’s parents, as he was of mine, and was truly excited when one of his nephews joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2006.
So what happened?
Politics.
Last month “The New Yorker” published an editorial on the sudden and unexpected support for Donald Trump among Latinos. In Texas trump won a larger share of the Latino vote in the last election than he did in 2016. Reading the piece left me stunned – and curious. How could a man who made such derogatory comments about Mexicans in general, the same one who hurtled rolls of paper towels at people in Puerto Rico, find greater support from others in those same groups? Even though Trump had disparaged Mexican immigrants, I felt it was just a small step away from demonizing all people of Mexican heritage or ethnicity; people whose Indian and Spanish ancestors had occupied what is now the Southwestern U.S. since before Trump’s predecessors arrived on the East Coast. Many of those people are also among the nation’s working class; the blue collar workers who form the unappreciated and under-appreciated backbone of any society. And yes, even the white collar workers, such as myself, who have struggled through the chaos of corporate America. Regardless of race or ethnicity we’re the ones who suffered the most in the last Great Recession and in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. That an arrogant, elitist, tax-cheating buffoon of a charlatan can find kindred souls in this crowd truly boggles my mind.
Pete, on the other hand, said the editorial made “perfect sense” so him. He had already expressed some support for Trump, especially in relation to his reactions to China. He then went on to demonize both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; dubbing them “evil” and decrying what he perceived to be their socialist agenda. In other words, Pete was reiterating the paranoid mantra of right-wing extremists.
But he went further. He bemoaned the stimulus payments coming out of Washington; claiming they were unnecessary and that anyone suffering financial distress during the pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn deserved no help or sympathy; that they should have prepared better for such a calamity.
Seriously?
I pointed out that I was one of those people struggling now. I had taken off a lot of time to care for my aging parents and had managed to save some money over the years; adding that a lot of that hard-earned money was now gone and reminding him I have had trouble – like so many others – finding a job. I also noted that it’s that people don’t or won’t save money; it’s that they can’t – not with both the high cost of living and stagnant wages.
Pete sounds like many evangelical Christian leaders – the folks he once denounced as the heathens of Christianity – the idiots who propagate the myth that poverty is a result of moral failings; that people choose to be poor because they have no desire to work hard and sacrifice. He got upset with me over that; he – a devout Roman Catholic – being compared to an evangelical Christian?! The people who read and study only half the Christian Bible?! How dare I make such an analogy!
But that’s how I felt. Then and now. His new-found beliefs and sudden change of attitude are one reason why I left the Catholic Church and why I no longer align with any branch of Christianity.
I reiterated my discussions with Pete to friends and a relative who his both agnostic and generally conservative. The latter considers himself a Republican and has been very successful in life. He also subscribes to “The New Yorker” and had read that particular editorial. And he found it “awful” that so many Texas Latinos supported Trump who he does not like. He also noted that anyone can experience financial problems and that a lack of personal resources isn’t always a sign of any kind of moral failings. Like me he was raised Roman Catholic, but – unlike me – is not in any way spiritual. He also reassured me that I’m not a failure. A few other friends have told me the same. At times like this, I need that kind of support.
It’s a shame I felt the need to sever ties with Pete. I mean, how does a 30-plus-year friendship come to an end over an editorial? Is that something that needed to happen? I wonder if I was overreacting or my past hyper-sensitive persona had suddenly resurrected itself.
I’d like to know if any of you folks have encountered the same dilemma. Have you ever felt the need to end a friendship with someone over such strong personal disagreements?
*Name changed.
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