Michael Fanone, the DC Metropolitan police officer who was dragged, beaten and tasered during the January 6 Insurrection has been trying to meet with congressmen about the investigations, special committees and general recognition about what actually occurred.
Yesterday, he met with Rep. Kevin McCarthy to ask him not to appoint obstructionists to the House special committee that Pelosi is creating. He also asked McCarthy to publicly disavow the lies about the insurrection. McCarthy said he would think about the first request and that he would speak privately to his coalition on the second. Which means Kevin will do nothing of the sort and will never admit to any other version of the January 6 Insurrection except under oath.
Cue fighting the subpoenas and dragging it out indefinitely.
But that’s not the only attitude Fanone has encountered. There was also the time he met with Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) who described January 6 as a “typical tour” and voted against giving those police who defended the Capitol a Congressional Medal of Honor.
By the way, let’s take a moment to replay that typical tour, shall we? Let’s review what happened to officer Fanone. Pick it up at about the 1:25 minute mark:
When Fanone went to the Capitol to speak with the Republicans obstructing the special committee bill, Clyde ducked into an elevator. Fanone jumped in with him, introduced himself and extended his hand. Clyde tried desperately to ignore him.
But Clyde isn’t the only representative who is rude and disrespectful. It seems to be commonplace among the Republican representatives and their staffs that Fanone has met with.
It seems to go against the normal rules of self-preservation to treat the people who are responsible for saving your life like dirt. But there’s something deeper and uglier at work here. These representatives will go to their graves defending their right to follow the previous Oval Office resident off a cliff. They’ll also fight like hell to keep their part of the country in the 19th century. They’ll move heaven and earth to preserve all of that isolationism and anti-immigrant, anti-labor, tariff loving behavior that we learned were “Problems of Democracy” in high school.
Since so many of these congressmen live in the south, I’m beginning to think that lincoln won the battle but lost the war. He should have freed the slaves, moved them all north, and then let the South secede. A Cuba style generational blockade would have been a nice touch so they couldn’t get any additional slaves in or cotton out.
Sure, there will still be rural areas that will always resist the irresistible pull of progress. But there would be a lot fewer electoral college states to try to integrate into a country they have no respect for or any intention of preserving the Constitution they have vowed to protect.
People like Clyde and Margery Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz have used their free speech to undermine the US. They’ll never overturn this country without a “to the death” fight from the rest of us. And we will outnumber them over and over again. They know this. All they can do is be massive pains in our asses. Do we really need that?? We should have cut them free.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
i have often thought of that; if we would be better off had the slave states all been allowed to secede, and there were no Civil War. But of course that would have allowed slavery to continue. Your idea, that we win the war first, then free the slaves, let them all come north, and then let the South secede, is a good one, though of course it would have been extremely difficult to move all of the \former slaves to various Northern states; and the only reason the South wanted to secede in the first place, was to perpetuate slavery. Without it, they would probably have stayed in the union, and plotted how to overturn the country, as they essentially have done for the 156 years after the Civil War, and as they are doing now.
I agree that these southern states, most of them and their leaders, are impossible to work with, they are inimical to democracy. They are doing everything they can to keep their control, including making it impossible for Democrats to ever win there. I am glad that Garland and the DOJ are now filing lawsuits against them, and investigating threats against election officials. Maybe we must send federal troops down there, as we did to enforce integration. Maybe we will indeed have another civil war. Or maybe there are enough reasonable people there to overcome the blights of lack of education, of ignorance and bias, which has never gone away in most of those states.
Generally I am all for those states (mostly but not all southern) succeeding. The problem I always come up with, is that there are no doubt some people in all of those states who would be more comfortable staying in the union. Perhaps the next big ‘AirBnB’ type app would match people in blue states who want to go red with those in red states who want to go blue.
This is mostly (but not entirely) true now, but it hasn’t always been the case. Idaho gave us Frank Church. South Dakota gave us George McGovern. Indiana gave us Birch and Evan Bayh. Missouri gave us Dick Gephardt. Arkansas gave us Fulbright and Clinton. Georgia gave us Jimmy Carter,and more recently John Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, and Stacy Abrams. Texas gave us LBJ (probably the most effective Democratic Majority Leader in history), the redoubtable Anne Richards, Julian and Juan Castro, and Beto O’Rourke. And while Adlai Stevenson was born in Los Angeles, he grew up in rural Illinois.
All is not lost, RD. 😉
Thank you for the reminder that our country’s history is much more complex and diverse than some people realize.
The reason why Republicans are so intent on restricting voting and gerrymandering in those states is because they know damned well they don’t represent the majority, so they need to repress voting and play fast and loose with redistricting to hold power. Our best weapon is the ballot box.
Adlai Stevenson was born in Los Angeles. He died in London but his chosen burial place is his hometown of Bloomington, Illinois. It must have meant a great deal to him.
And how, in the name of all that is holy, could I have forgotten Tom Harkin from Iowa and the sadly deceased Mike Gravel from Alaska?
And Barbara Jordan from Texas?
Somewhat off topic, but the epicenter of creepy right-wing pseudo-Christianity is the South, so not that far off topic.
In case anyone thought creepy right-wing pseudo-Christianity was confined to the USA:
https://www.wonkette.com/australian-christian-school-kids-get-super-creepy-romantic-advice
If you want to see creepy, right-wing, “Christianity” at work in Scandinavia, I recommend the HBO documentary “Pray, Obey, Kill”. It happens in the (far) North, too.
From Me Not Sure on Wonkette, to the tune of “Summertime Blues”:
🎶Well, I’m gonna be stupid, yeah I’m gonna get dumber
If I have to hear Trump keep yappin’ all summer
Ya know I had a MAGA tell me Trump really won
When I said that Trump didn’t he pulled out a gun
Sometimes I wonder if it’s all “fake news”
Cuz there ain’t no hidin’ from the space laser J3ws🎶
🎶Gonna take three Xanax, gonna get very drowsy
Gonna take to bed, cuz I feel really lousy
Well I called my congresswoman, she said quote
“I’m Marjorie Taylor Greene and you’re too black to vote.”
Sometimes I wonder when Trump’ll pay some dues
Cuz there ain’t no cure for the Trumpertime blues.🎶
From 1969; still relevant. This is one of those songs I first remember hearing on Beaker Street.