#Cal Thomas, "Mob attack on Capitol is neither conservatism nor Republicanism," The Albuquerque Journal, Janury 8, 2021. - "Any supporter of President Trump and his policies must renounce this horror with even more vehemence than they denounced the riots of last summer, but the two are not equivalent. By any fair measure, President Trump's rhetoric since the November 3 election, has invited people to distrust their own government and the way our leaders are selected." "The rioters and the president -- have claimed the mantel of 'law and order,' and support of the police, and yet when it comes to obeying the law, preserving the order and respecting the police, they would have none of it."
"The excuses, the comparison with what the left does, and the 'whataboutism' can't cut it this time. This is not conservatism. This is not Republicanism." "Republicans have lost their claim to be the party of balanced budgets. Do they also want to be the party of morality and 'family values'? "
#Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan, "Georgia offers hope that the era of Trumpism is gone," The Albuquerque Journal, January 8, 2021. - "Trump's son, Don Jr., shouted, as he threatened congressional Republicans unwilling to support overturning Biden's election, 'We're coming for you and we're going to have a good time doing it.' "Compare Wednesday's lax police presence to the major, miliarized mobilization in respnse to this summer's protests against systemic racism, and police brutality in defense of Black lives." ['defense of' should probably be replaced by 'in regard to'].
"Illinois' Democratic Sen. Durbin invoked the memory of that devastating Compromise of 1877: 'The senator from Texas [Ted Cruz] says we just want to create a little commission. Ten days we're going to audit all the states... and find out what actually occurred. It's parallel to 1876, Hays and Tilden. Don't forget what the commission achieved: It was a commission that killed Reconstruction, that established Jim Crow, that... re-enslaved African Americans, and it initiated the voter suppression we are still fighting today.' "
#Leonard Pitts, "Prosecute Trump, rioters to maximum extent of law," The Albuquerque Journal, January 15, 2021. - "The commanding general of the rebel army was never imprisoned nor tried. The 'president' of the rebel states did spend two years in prison, but then was released." "Meantime, the rebels themselves never stopped seeking to win as a practical matter what they had lost on the battlefield -- the right to subjugate African Americans."
" 'We need to get America back on a path towards unity,' says Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. 'Impeachment would be a major step back,' says Sen. Lindsey Graham. 'It's kicking when he's down,' complains Rep. Darell Issa, who calls Trump's sedition a 'misstep.' "
"The brazen gall of Trump's enablers, even at this late date, defies exaggeration. And we must see Trump held to answer for his crimes, must see him punished -- or else let us never again hold ourselves up as a beacon of democracy, or a nation of laws." "The point is not that mercy and reconciliation are bad. They're not. But to have meaning, mercy and reconciliation must follow repentence and accountability."
#Mabel Berezin, "Was President Trump a Fascist? Yes," The Nation, 1.25 - 2.1, 2021. - "Trump resembles a third-rate autocrat planning a failed coup, while becoming ever more unhinged in the process. His power has always come from his combination of triviality and cruelty." "Trump is a classic authoritarian personality with a fascist rhetorical style."
"Trump's presidency exposes the fissures embedded in our democracy, and concentrating only on his fascistic actions ignores the unstable political landscape that led to his rise in the first place." "His attraction to violence to deal with dissent, his flagrant disrespect for the law, his affinity for making up his own facts, and his taste for public spectacle easily fit the fascist template." "He has encouraged and given new legitimacy to networks of armed paramilitary 'patriots' who intervene in local and national politics."
#Elie Mystal, "Time to Deliver," The Nation, 1.25 - 2.1, 2021. - "Speaking of hypocrisy, it is worth remembering that Trump had declared a state of emergency when Congress wouldn't fund his border wall. He then misappropriated billions of dollars from the defense budget to start construction on it. If Trump can steal billions of dollars to pay for his racist fantasy, Biden can certainly withhold billions until police departments fignure out how to stop killing Black people."
Rodney Balko, a journalist and police reform advocate, has offered a suggestion that would change how the federal government treats police officers accused of brutality or malfeasance: Instruct the solicitor general to stop defending the police in brutality and qualified immunity cases in federal court. Mystal also wants to bring back consent decrees, abandoned by the Trump administration. He also calls for Biden to reinstate Obama's executive order restricting the sale of excess military equipment to local police.
#Rep. Liz Chaney (R-Wyo.) has said: "The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled this mob, and lit the flame for the attack." "The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not."
"There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."
ADDENDUMS:
*President Trump and Jeffery Clark, an ambitious Justice Department official, had hatched a plan to replace acting attorney general Jeffery Rosen with Clark. Once the switch was made, Clark would declare that the Department of Justice was launching an investigation of the state of Georgia for major election fraud. Trump was talked out of the plan before it could go into effect.
*The Justice Department is investigating the abrupt departure of U.S attorney Byung J. Pak in the state of Georgia.
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