January 6, 2021 Needs to be Investigated By a Commission

Top photo is a YouTube screenshot from the House Impeachment Manager’s video
presented at then-President Trump’s second impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate

In the age of “Trumpublicans” it should be no surprise that 35 members of the Senate GOP caucus voted to cover up the events of January 6, 2021, when a vicious Trump-led mob stormed into the capitol building threatening to kill members of Congress and the sitting vice president of the United States. Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence. And it should be appalling to everyone that a motion to authorize the January 6 Commission had 54 “Yay” votes and 35 “Nays.” In a democracy the bill would have passed, but not in the United States Senate. We, the populace of the United States, is held hostage by this thing called the filibuster. You won’t find it anywhere in the Constitution because it is a Senate rule that was created to give the slave states veto power over anti-slavery legislation.

By the way, the word “Filibuster” has an interesting history. Here’s what the Oxford Dictionary has to say: “(French) late 18th century: from French flibustier, first applied to pirates who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies. In the mid 19th century (via Spanish filibustero), the term denoted American adventurers who incited revolution in several Latin American states, whence filibuster (sense 2 of the noun). The verb was used to describe tactics intended to sabotage US congressional proceedings, whence filibuster (sense 1 of the noun)”

As a verb it is used to sabotage U.S. congressional proceedings.

And yet here we are, in the 21^th century, with the sabotage tactic still in use in the U.S. Senate. And that is what Moscow Mitch McConnell and his fellow pro-insurrectionists did when they stopped the formation of a January 6 Commission, a bill that should have passed with the 54 vote bipartisan majority. The pro-insurrectionist party, the vast majority of Republicans sabotaged the commission.

On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “This vote has made it official. Donald Trump’s big lie has now fully enveloped the Republican Party. Trump’s big lie is now the defining principle of what was once the Party of Lincoln.”

Tell it like it is Chuck. Armed insurrectionists — they were using poles, fire extinguishers and toxic chemicals as weapons — stormed into the capitol building intent on stopping what is usually a routine procedure and, if they could, assassinating members of congress and the sitting vice president.

Now, I don’t really care for Mike Pence. He is one of the worst politicians we have in this country. His policy ideas in regards to minorities and women are, to say the least, inhumane. Pence was born and raised in Columbus, Indiana, which at one time was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity. In fact 100 years ago the entire state of Indiana was controlled by the Klan.

No one believes the Klan could ever gain such a foothold in the state again, but Indianapolis TV station WRTV had this report. In it they quote a number of Indiana historians who talk about the rise of racist and nationalist organizations, especially since the election of Donald Trump as president and the ascendancy of former Breitbart personality Steve Bannon.

How much is Mike Pence influenced by the state’s history? Hard to say. He was the governor and a representative. His older brother Greg is a pro-insurrectionist Trumper in the House of Representatives.

Imagine that: the leader of your Cult calls for the killing of your brother, on national TV and social media no less, and your brother is just seconds away from being captured by the insurrectionist mob. That mob even constructed gallows outside the building for a public execution of your brother — and your fealty to the cult leader is still unwavering.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, kind of a relic of a bygone era with my tie-die T-shirts and Grateful Dead music, but I would like to think anyone who publicly called for the murder of my brother — or sister — would instantly be my enemy, regardless of how close I was with the sibling or the person calling for the death of said sibling.

Some will say that’s not what Trump said on the morning and afternoon of January 6, 2021. The Orange Baby was speaking to his followers before they went over to the capitol on their “tourist stroll” through the building, wrecking the place and smearing urine and feces on the walls. In regards to Mike Pence Trump said, “Mike Pence, I hope you’re gonna stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country, and if you’re not I’m gonna be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now.”

On the day before the largely ceremonial duty of certifying the recent presidential election, then Vice President Mike Pence sent a letter to Congress stating, “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

Well that ticked off the Orange Clown but good. In his January 6 speech Trump excoriated Pence several times, calling on his own VEEP to “do the right thing” and unilaterally give the election to Trump.

As the mob of insurrectionists were crashing into the capitol building the Orange Clown tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

That’s when the insurrectionists could be heard shouting, “Hang Mike Pence!”

Now nearly 500 members of that mob have been either indicted or convicted of various crimes associated with the attack on the capitol. Trump’s now defunct blog has been cited in some of the cases as evidence against those indicted. Since his blog never really got off the ground, it has been removed from the internet so I can’t go look at what the Orange Clown wrote, if he even wrote any of it, so I’m not sure why they are using it, other than to confirm the former president’s role in the insurrection and his admiration for the people that planned and led the mob.

What is known is that prosecutors are using text messages and emails between Oathkeepers who were hoping Trump would declare an insurrection and call on these so-called militias to take back the country for Trump. By the way Oathkeepers, I’m not crying, but then again I’m not a commie either.

• Just an aside: one of that group’s founders looks like a real pirate — he wears an eye patch.

For Senate Republicans having federal prosecutors charge and indict Trump followers for the attack is just fine and dandy. As long as the prosecutors don’t start going after the politicians that instigated the January 6 attack. And let’s be a little more specific: GOP politicians that instigated, aided and abetted the attacks. Let’s be very specific: Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Margery Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and others. And most specifically, Donald J. Trump, the leader of the insurrectionists.

A January 6 Commission that looked into the development of the insurrection would certainly include the words and deeds of many in the GOP and that information would start to dribble out as Senators and Representatives were campaigning for re-election in 2022. That would be very bad for the Party of Trump. It already looks bad for Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-GA) who compared the insurrection to “normal tourist visit.” Then video of him barricading the House Chambers’s doors against the “normal tourists” surfaced and, well he was thoroughly mocked on social media.

The recent special election in New Mexico to fill the seat vacated when Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland took her new job was a good sign things won’t go well for the Party of Trump. Democrat Melanie Stansbury won the seat with 60.3% of the vote, running against three other people. A cool 25 points ahead of her Republican rival Mark Moores, a bigger margin that Haaland herself ever received and a much bigger margin than Biden received in 2020.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is already working on an alternative to the commission she and the House approved, but what is really inspiring is that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin expressed shock his Republican colleagues didn’t vote for the commission. No one else is shocked, but Joe Manchin is. Rachel Maddow said she was shocked to learn Manchin was shocked.

Maybe now Manchin — and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema — can get over their naiveté about bipartisanship and do away with the filibuster. Clearly President Biden is ready to move on from it. He called out his Democratic colleagues in a speech at the 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre when he called for the passage of the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

He should include voting to open the January 6 Commission. Let’s find out not only who participated in the attack, but who started it and why.