Happy Anniversary

Tradition dictates that to celebrate a first anniversary, a gift of paper is the time-honored way to recognize the occasion.

And I agree.

So it is only appropriate that on this, the first anniversary of the seditious attacks on the nation's capitol, a blizzard of paper gifts be bestowed upon the participants. Things like warrants. Subpoenas. Complaints. Indictments. Citations. Etcetera.

While a fair number of the rioters have already been charged, too few have been treated with the severity their acts of insurrection demand.

Sentencing is always a nebulous affair, with judges given to wide interpretation of events and circumstances. But how is that tears and flimsy excuses are exchanged for slap-on-the-wrist sentences of (gulp) probation and home detention?

Seriously?

That's the price for participating in an organized effort to overturn and deny the results of a presidential election? For storming the nation's capitol and killing three cops? Taking part in a mission with a stated goal of hanging the vice-president?

Huh?

Too typical is the case of Anna Morgan-Lloyd. In an Oscar-worthy performance, Morgan-Lloyd convinced judge Royce Lamberth she was ashamed of the “savage display of violence” she oh so eagerly partook in.

Just a day later she related to Fox News that people were actually “very polite” during the riot and that she saw “relaxed” police offers conversing with rioters and that she didn't really believe the events of that day constituted an insurrection..

(Don't you just hate it when Trumpers don't take their meds?)

Furthermore, when do Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Josh Hawley take the stand? Ted Cruz? Tommy Tuberville? How about Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who ordered—in advance—that the National Guard not respond to any calls for help originating from the nation's capitol?

The events of January sixth were as spontaneous, as impulsive as the Super Bowl. We know everything we need to know. January 6^th demands top-to-bottom accountability. Scrutiny. Investigation. Hearings, trials and imprisonment.

Excuse the raw language, but we need to treat the participants as if they were Black.

We need to get angry. Stay angry. And make sure January 6th is treated as seriously as it needs to be, with severe punishment for the participants at each and every level.

And to impart to the mentally-ill folks across the aisle and their brain-damaged supporters that sedition is not okay.

Never.

Ever.

The Other Side of the Asile

If you're like me, you might have winced ever so slightly when Republicans accused Twitter and Facebook (and by extension—“cancel culture” Democrats) of denying Donald Trump his First Amendment rights. His right to free speech.

Of censorship and banishment.

And um, I agree. In the tiniest, most-literal sense imaginable.

But this is Donald Trump. The cancer who stood in front of a mob of right-wing nut jobs and exhorted them to do his bidding for him. To march on the Capitol building and prevent the “stolen” election results from being etched in stone—by any and all means necessary.

But like so much of what emanates from the mouths of Republicans, we needn't have worried.

Republicans have taken it upon themselves to administer their own brand of censorship by their efforts to remove, silence or, at the very least, censure those in elected office who didn't march in lockstep with president 45 on everything.

Up to and including sedition.

Sadly, the poster child for this foolishness is Liz Cheney, a congresswoman from Wyoming. Her words, more than any other, articulated the dismay so many of us felt after the events of January sixth.

She said Donald Trump had betrayed the oath he took when he became president. Yes. Betrayed. As in cheating a spouse. Jilting a lover. The word carries a powerful human component of hurt and loss. Of being lied to. It is the perfect choice.

If that weren't enough, Cheney had the temerity to vote for impeachment of Crazy Don, an act which didn't escape the notice of the Wyoming GOP. They voted 66 to 8 to censure her.

Want to talk to me again about the First Amendment, gentlemen? Oh that's right. Only Democrats censor people. You're just ensuring party homogeny.

Sore loser Darin Smith even went so far as to publicly answer the question 'You want to know how far down the Trump rabbit hole I am?' by speaking thusly:

“We need to honor President Trump. All President Trump did was call for a peaceful assembly and protest for a fair and audited election.”

Which he got—weeks before this charade.

I'm trying to imagine the Republican response had it been President Obama speaking Trump's words in front of a crowd of BLM supporters. Telling them “You need to fight like hell! Because if you don't, you're not going to have a country any more!” Or having Obama's faux Giuliani suggest “Let's have trial by combat!”

Yes, Republicans would be falling all over themselves to hang Obama from a tree. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

But coming from Trump and addressed to an angry, roiling mob armed with guns, ammunition, helmets, bullet proof vests, police shields and filled with a soon-to-be-acted-on murderous rage?

Nah. It's just Don being Don. 

If you say so.