|
the DON JONES INDEX… |
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|
GAINS
POSTED in GREEN LOSSES
POSTED in RED |
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1/15/22… 14,770.47 1/8/22… 14,723.68
6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
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(THE DOW JONES
INDEX: 1/15/22…
35,911.81; 1/8/22… 36,359.56; 6/27/13… 15,000.00) |
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LESSON for January 15,
2022 – “AMERICA’S PAPER ANNIVERSARY! (Part Two – Let the Li’l
Dawgs Eat)”
“If you’re going to be a monster, be the best monster.” Dr. Zachary
Smith (Jonathan Harris) on “Lost in Space” (last night on Antenna TV)
On Monday last, Don
Jones and nearly all America broke out the greasy giblets, warm beer and tribal
or familial conviviality, settled back and watched the Big Dawgs of Georgia
roll the Alabama Crimson Tide, gaining revenge for their earlier defeat at the
Southeastern Conference championship game and the designation of national
college football Division One Champion for the first time
in... oh what was it... a lot of
years.
As
Mister Don and the Jones family returned to their daily grind after the
holidays exactly one week earlier, the House Select Committee on the 1/6/21
Capitol riots held its own
first-in-what-is-expected-to-be-an-annual-commemoration-of-the-failed-coup/insurgency-at-least-until-we-grow-tired-of-it
commemoration with an all day gabfest featuring Big
Dawgs like President Biden, Vice President Harris, Congressional leaders Pelosi
(the more or less chief instigator and party planner of the spectacle) and
Schumer, a drednought of politicians (almost all
Democrats except for a handful of renegade Republicans like Committee
inquisitors Rep. Liz Cheney (with surprise guest from Wyoming) and Illinois
lame puppy Adam Kinzinger while, on the sidelines,
the Small Dawgs of the presidential and oppositional parties, the media (left,
right and simply commercial), assorted self-appointed arbiters of public taste
for the benefit of a handful of Joneses not obligated by work or school by
virtue of age or plague and possessed of the wherewithal to plug-in-drug
themselves with the formalities on premium or cable television while the
digital proles were served up a heaping helping of General Hospital,
infomercials and The View.
Down
in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, the Old Dawg growled promises of an explosive he-bang!
of his own which did not, however (like his personally leading the troops into
the Capitol) manifest.
In
advance of the ceremonies, White House SecPress Jen
Psaki predicted that the President would make “a strong statement.” Kicking off the New Year’s Voldemort/Candyman
“no name” meme (until she would not help herself, somewhat later... see last
week’s Lesson), Psaki
told the Guardian UK, among others, that Joe would speak to the truth, not lies
and was "clear eyed about the threat the former president represents to
our democracy," Psaki said, adding that the former president “constantly
works to constantly undermine basic American values and rule of law."
(Reuters)
As
said Lesson also noted: “According
to tradition, a couple so wedded in infamy as the January 6th and
Constitution must celebrate their first Anniversary with gifts of paper.” Paper can denote pretty wrappings, or cash
money or... in the instant case... either the subpoenas, transcripts and
documents being diligently compiled and accumulated by the Select Committee
(“select” being Pelosi’s Star Chamber of Liz, Adam and seven hanging Democratic
judges) or what tidy people use to collect, wrap in and dispose of those things
that Big and Little Dawgs alike leave on the sidewalk.
In
days leading up to the Paper Anniverary, texts and
twitters... not easily confiscated and evidence written notes... had been
exchanged between conspirators, self-designated innocent bystanders and (then)
worried Republican officials with one eye towards the midterms, 2024 and beyond
and the other upon polls showing that Djonald
Unseated was still the overwhelming favorite of the Elephant Men.
The
Hill, on the first Monday of 2022, January third, contended that President
Biden would have to “engage in a delicate dance,” citing Democratic strategist
Joel Payne, who predicted his primary job would be “…to take the temperature
down and create space for healing. I
think this actually provides a good opportunity for him to remind people of why
he was elected in the first place,” Payne added.
But
Hell no!... that didn’t happen
Doug Heye, a Hill-pigeon, GOP strategist and former
communications director of the Republican National Committee, also argued that
Biden should not focus on Trump in his own remarks. He said it would be better
for the president to deliver a nonpartisan speech.
“If
Biden talks about those democratic beliefs that bind us as a nation and talks
with empathy about the Capitol Police officers and so forth, he can be
successful. If he becomes political, then he’s not successful,” he said.
Not
every Democrat agreed with this analysis.
Others,
solicited by the Hill (but not identified) said it was important for Biden to
“swipe at Trump over the deadly attack,” which he did, although never naming
his predessor.
Two who
did go on the record were Democratic strategist Eddie Vale who, despite
acknowledging that “… there is an understandable natural urge to not overly
politicize tragedies and Biden is especially mindful of trying to restore more
trust and dignity to the office post-Trump,” added that “it is also equally
important to remember that this happened because of political lies by Trump and
Republicans that are not only continuing today but if anything are getting even
worse.”
Democratic
strategist Christy Setzer noted that even after the Capitol was evacuated and
ugly images of police officers being beaten by members of the mob were
broadcast around the world, a number of Republicans voted against certifying
the results of the election in various states.
“President Biden needs to communicate not only
that he understands the gravity of what happened on Jan. 6, as I’m sure he will
do, but that he will use the
for humoring him for this little bit of time?” a senior
Republican official infamously told
the Washington Post shortly after the election. The downside proved to be
lockdowns in undisclosed locations, gas masks, bullets, hundreds of injuries,
and a roving mob trying to locate and kidnap the vice president. The downside
was an insurrection in their workplace, the seat of government.
“McCarthy, whatever he said in the moment, remains,”
in the words of Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger—one of
the two remaining honest Republicans about the Jan. 6 — “an employee of Donald
Trump.” (If he’d quit working for Trump,
Slate’s Jim Newell opined on Tuesday, Jan 4th,
he’d never have become speaker.)
“President Biden needs to communicate not only that he
understands the gravity of what happened on Jan. 6, as I’m sure he will do, but
that he will use the power of his office to ensure accountability,” said Democratic
strategist Christy Setzer. “It’s still mystifying and depressing that the 147
Republicans who voted not to certify the election based on lies are still in
office... (t)hat those who helped the insurrectionists literally try to murder
their colleagues are still in office, and not prison.”
As a rule, members of Congress expect that they can be as
incendiary, shameless, and cowardly as they want without facing any
life-threatening consequences. They didn’t expect that playing footsie with, or
outright embracing, the president’s efforts to overturn an election could lead
to physical violence,” added Newell. No,
they were just trying to stay on the good side of a lame-duck president who
still controlled the Republican base.
On
Wednesday, Jan 5th , Speaker Pelosi, after
informing the Associated Press that “democracy won”… also warned Americans to
be alerted to the fact “that there can
be rogue presidents.”
One
such, also on Wednesday before the commemoration, has collected a “windfall”
(Time); Trump’s political machine having raked in at least $50 million in the
six months that followed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to filings with the
Federal Election Commission, “an unusually high figure for a defeated former
President during his first year out of office and nearly eight times what Trump
raised in outside funding while seeking the GOP nomination in 2015.”
And,
as Trump and his allies exploit the failed insurrection to raise money and woo
voters, “they have also leveraged it to weed out GOP members critical of
Trump’s actions that day,” (that is, those few who did not, like McCarthy and
Lindsey Graham, woof a critical comment or two, then dash back to Team Trump, tails
wagging and jaws slavering). “After U.S.
Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan voted to impeach Trump for trying to
overturn the election result and staying silent for hours while his supporters
violently laid siege to the Capitol,” Time reported that Trump called him a
“RINO” (“Republican in name only”) and endorsed a primary challenger. “Trump
also endorsed a challenger against Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington State, who voted in favor of his
second impeachment and said Trump encouraged ‘would-be assassins’ with his
remarks at a rally before the attack.”
And
then it became Thursday! Showtime! (See Attachment One)
In a
half-filled, half-empty Congressional Statuary Hall, nearly all of the
Democrats and no... zero, zilch, nada... Republicans (save for Liz Cheney and,
to the surprise and horror of the G.O.P. faithful, her father, the 80 year old arch-conservative Bush Two Vice, Dick) gathered
to pay tribute to the victims and heroes of the one-six.
Vice President Harris
warmed up the Thursday morning looky-lous by mixing a
trough of tributes with appeals to a constituency of two... rebellious
Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema...
to remember the perfidy of the agents (and perhaps instigators) of the
insurgency and, by the way, pass a tough voting
rights bill
Describing
the Capitol insurrection as an ominous warning about the future of the country
should its root causes go unaddressed. (USA Today), the Veep
added that “On January 6th, (2021) we all saw what our nation would look like
if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful: The
lawlessness, the violence, the chaos,” Harris ticked off a roster of
deplorables.
“The
American spirit is being tested,” she cautioned. The answer to whether we will
meet that test resides where it has always resided in our country – with you.
The people. The work ahead will not be easy.”
(See
Attachment Two)
As
Harris spoke, Biden retrieved a tissue from his pocket, and wiped his
eyes. And then the Big Dog took the podium at 9 AM
Tuesday, give or take a few minutes, and commemorated, if not celebrated, the
occasion by barking out a loud, long and vitriolic speech at the previously
defaced Statuary Hall in Washington... pointedly refusing to call his
predecessor by name in the manner that terrified Hogwartians
refuse to even whisper the name of the vile Voldemort or reckless Muggles who utter
the name “Candyman” are duly snatched and dispatched by that monstrous being.
After
the big dawgs finished barking and feasting, the rest of the assembled mutts
(all of the Democratic persuasion or sympathies) gathered to howl in agreement.
“When an angry violent mob staged an
insurrection on January 6th and desecrated our Capitol — the temple of our
democracy — it was not just an attack on the building,” declared Sen. Amy Klobuchar
(D-Mn), “it was an attack on our Republic itself. Yet thanks to the heroism of
the Capitol Police and other law enforcement officers, we were able to resume
our work and every state’s certified electoral votes were counted. Under
unimaginable circumstances, democracy prevailed.
“A year after that dark day, our
hearts remain heavy as we think of the law enforcement officers who lost their
lives or suffered injuries. It is due to their bravery that we were able to
facilitate a peaceful transition of power, and we will forever be grateful.”
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that it was
“difficult to put into words what it is like to stand here on the floor of the
United States Senate, on this day of all days,” in an address substantially
longer than Klobuchar’s or, even, Harris’… denouncing mob violence, the
Confederate flag and the “bigot” who’d called him a “big Jew” (hint: not Marco Rubio, not this time). Borrowing from Dickens, he recalled the “best
of times” on that day upon learning that two Democrats had been elected to the
Senate, elevating him to at least the status of a working bloodhound (if not
quite Bayou, the Giant Schnauzer who took best-in-show at the American Kennel
Club) then experienced the “worst of times”
during the insurrection.
(See a report by CNN and a transcript of
his speech as Attachments Three A and B)
And then, at High Noon, House Speaker
Pelosi, another Big... uh, female canine (See Attachment Four and her previous
A.P. Interview, Attachment Five)... called for a
moment of silence, after which more rescue dawgs trooped to the podium to wag
their tails and grin. Librarian of
Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, hosted a conversation
between the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and the Biden adviser John Meacham
“to establish and preserve the narrative” of the attack; Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del (backstroking
backwards to that day when: "We had a front
row seat to what lies, hate or what pain old misinformation conjure,” then
drifting on stranger tides of memory - a cruise from victim to witness where
today, she said, “we are messengers”; and other Democratic members who spoke
about how close they were to their lives being in danger and how their
Republican colleagues have undermined the effort to accurately remember just
what happened.
“The occasion was about so much more than an effort to break
into a building,” Blunt-Rochester spoke... bluntly, of course... “it was an
effort to break down our institutions."
When asked by Hayden where the country goes forward from
here, historian Meacham summed up: "We don't know."
At 2:30, the spotlight turned to Rep. Jason
Crow (D-Wi), a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, hosted a session with lawmakers
recounting their experiences during the attack in the Cannon Caucus Room at the
Capitol and, “most indelibly,” as Crow recalled,
“the loud clap of a gunshot, reverberating across the cavernous chamber.
“I’ve heard a lot of gunshots in my time,
and it was very clear what that was,” Crow told the politicians (some of whom
now dub themselves the Gallery Group), “I knew that things had severely
escalated.”
Pelosi
(D-Ca) conducted a prayer
vigil and moment of silence as night embraced D.C. with more than 130
organizations commemorating the siege with music by the Baltimore Urban
Inspiration Choir.
After
the memorial, the elder Cheney told the gathered media (whom he had castigated
and condemned as all-but-Socialists during his eight years in power) that he
was deeply disappointed (that) we don’t have better leadership in the party.” Unkind words were expected and uttered by
Liz... who, with Adam Kinzinger (not present, saying
he was on “baby watch”), serves on Rep. Schumer’s Star Chamber and had been one
of only ten Republicans to vote for the President’s impeachment… and
expectations were fulfilled by her tweeting: “Anyone who denies the truth of
what happened on January 6th ought to be ashamed of themselves. We know what
happened. History is watching and history will judge them.” (NPR)
Meanwhile,
as the Democrats prayed and celebrated themselves before going home to their
dinner bowls and a night of watching it all over again on television, bitter Foxiecrats were accusing Joe of slandering the former
President who, despite Biden’s “Candymort” ploy,
complained that President Joe had 'used my name today to try to further divide
America.' For his part, the former
President... having found his way out of the Spiderman-ish
web of lies and home to Mar-a-Lago... meekly cancelled his much-touted press
conference – the Capitol insiders either accepting his excuse that “advisers”
had recommended prudence to honor the solemnity of the occasion or snarking
that Djonald Unelected realized that his ratings
would be swamped by the Capitol Show and, consequently, decided to hold his
fire and strike back under quieter circumstances. (See Attachments Six – A through D)
Daily
Beast columnist Matt Lewin simply gushed that today (1/6/22) was “the day that Biden became president.
Liberals, of late, talk a lot about
defending democracy, and this is a very valid and important thing to do.
Unfortunately, in this environment, it can also come across as preachy,
alarmist, and even weak (this was the same problem liberals faced in the 1930s,
when they looked weak and impotent in the face of more dynamic and energetic
fascist leaders).
“That’s why it’s so important that Biden took the fight to
Trump. Bill Clinton famously said that ‘strong and wrong beats weak and right.’
Clinton was correct—and this lesson was especially important for liberals to
learn. In this case, Biden has the benefit of being strong and right.” (See Attachment Seven A)
But
the Beast also replicated editorials by Party of Trump POTheads
Dana Perino and Bret Baier, calling the president’s remarks “aggressive” and
“political.” Additionally, Perino griped that the president didn’t show enough
“gratitude” that his 2020 election win was eventually certified. (See Attachment Seven B)
“If
your instinct is to escalate rather than de-escalate attention and division,
then that’s one way to go about it. And in some ways to me what I thought today
is the president missed an opportunity to talk about what you just said, which
is that our founding fathers were brilliant.”
The
former George W. Bush spokesperson then said that Biden “could have shown
gratitude to those lawmakers who came back to the chamber after being quite
shaken” and went about certifying the electoral results.
“They
come back, do the right thing and Joe Biden is inaugurated and he is president,
and we as a country have moved on,” Perino added. “We have a lot of challenges
that we’re dealing with but you could have talked about the strength of our
system and right now.”
On
the other hand, Djonald Unspayed, according to a Daily
Beastly snarl from a correspondent with the suspicious aliast
of “Sick Puppy” has repeatedly made fun of the idea
that certain legislators, police, or journalists were traumatized by the
violent events of the day, according to these sources. “There are moments when
the ex-president has speculated that his critics are “faking” their trauma and
anxiety, for attention. Other times, he’s done poor, whining impersonations of
perceived enemy lawmakers crying about the riot.
“(D)espite his
frequent claims about “backing the blue,” Trump privately referred to some of
the police officers who were at the Capitol that day as “pussies”.
(Attachment Seven C)
And
then dark night fell, a strange moon rose... traversed the sky and disappeared...
the sun reappeared and it was Friday. January 7th, and all over but
the shouting. No shooting, only the
yapping from the critics within their various rescue shelters – left, right,
center and, frankly, from outer space…
A lot
of shouting... and a lot of yapping...
The inquisitiveness of the Inquisitors slowly rising to
fever pitch, Majority Leader Schumer trekked back to the well, to pitch
President Joe’s voting rights
struggle, adding that “It was Donald Trump's ‘Big Lie’ that soaked our
political landscape in kerosene. It was Donald Trump's rally on the wall that
struck the match. Then came the fire," Schumer said.
Adam Schiff (D-Ca) also pivoted to voting rights, recalling
that “In the wake of that awful day, I hoped that we might turn a corner, that
Republicans would come to repudiate Trump and Trumpism, after seeing the
terrible devastation it brought to our country and democracy.
“Instead, in the days, weeks, months, and year since, they
have doubled down on the Big Lie and used it to attack the work of nonpartisan
elections officials around the country and the right to vote.”
Crow, subsequent to his moment in the
spotlight, further added that: "It is said that truth dies when people
stop speaking it. Well, it will not die on our watch."
"We had a front row seat to what lies,
hate or what pain old misinformation conjures. We went from victims to
witnesses and today, we are messengers," Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-De
remembered.
Andy
Kim (not the singer of “Rock Me Gently” and former Archie but a House Member
from New Jersey) took the theatrical step of taking a knee and taking up a
(presumably Biden-prayer) cloth to clean up the mess on the floor of the
Capitol.
“A year later, the most
vivid memory I have of Jan 6 is the moment I returned to the House chamber
after the riot had been quelled,” Kim said. “I stepped over broken glass to get
into the chamber. What ensued over the next hour was the most powerful
experience of my career.”
Kim described how, as members of Congress
sought to regroup after order was finally restored, he hoped lawmakers might
find a new sense of common purpose after the Capitol was attacked. For a brief
moment, he recalled, that seemed to happen. But then the politicians turned to
the matter of Joe Biden’s defeat of President Donald Trump.
“When speeches switched back to electoral
college debate, I felt something change in the room,” Kim said. “I watched
people pull out the same speech about election fraud they were going to give
before, as if the riot never happened.”
“The prospect of unity lasted only 35 min and
53 seconds,” he tweeted.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mi) voiced her fear that the
"fundamental roots" of democracy are under attack. "We go to school and we
learn freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech. Those
freedoms can not be taken for granted. We
all have to protect the roots of our democracy," Dingell said
Former President Jimmy Carter
said that the Capitol Mob was “guided
by unscrupulous politicians” who are more interested in gaining power than
preserving U.S. democratic institutions.
“Our great nation now teeters on the brink of
a widening abyss,” Carter wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times. “Without immediate action, we are at genuine
risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy.”
Biden
himself defended his anniversary speech after a CBS reporter pressed him on whether calling out his
predecessor multiple times would only serve to further "divide" the
country in an already polarizing moment.
While Fox
reported that CBS reporter Nikole Killion asked Biden
after the speech if his arrows at his predecessor would backfire and
"divide" the country, particularly after he talked so much about
"healing." The president defended his words at the podium.
"No, no,
look," Biden responded. "The way you have to heal, you have to
recognize the extent of the wound. You can't pretend. This is serious stuff.
And a lot of people, understandably, want to go, 'Look…I'd just as soon not
face it.'"
"That's what
great nations do," Biden added. "They face the truth."
Republicans took a deep breath over the weekend, watched the final contests as the
NFL playoff field finally resolved itself, rushed to their grocers’ (or, more
likely, made a list of greasy snacks to phone in to DoorDash
or some delivery service after their first day back on the job but before the
Alabama-Georgia tussle on the night of the 13th... in the sole instance of
comradely cross-partisan competition, Georgia Reps. David Scott (a Democrat)
and Jody Hice (a Republican) won a lunch of
Alabama-smoked barbecue, potato pies and a Bama in a Box shipment of
Alabama-made products complementary of losing Alabaman’s Robert Aderholt (R)
and Terri Sewell (D).
But
earlier on Monday, House leader McCarthy expostulated the Reese’s Pieces theory
of “No Shame!” and the “Die Hard”/”John Wick” ethos of Maximum Revenge by
declaring that, “if” (pointedly, not “when”) Republicans retook the House in
November, he would strip Schiff, failed Presidential candidate and presumed
Chinese spy Swalwell and the vile, infectious AOC of their committee seats (and
presumably flog them with barbed wire in public) before invoking the man’s man
version of Sharia Law and beheading them with a rusty axe. (See Attachment Eight)
House
and Senate Republicans had telegraphed their ire going back to the week leading
up to the ceremony. House Minority
Leader McCarthy, interviewed by the pro-Trump New York Post accused Joe and the
Dems of using the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as a “partisan political weapon” and, on
Sunday the second, circulated a letter that began “Friends…” but expressed a
deeply unfriendly tone towards the folks across the other aisle.
“Later in the
letter, the Republican leader pivoted to the Jan. 6 anniversary,” Post
interviewer Callie Patteson noted, writing that the
election loser had admitted that (while – dji) the actions by President
Donald Trump supporters that day were “lawless and as wrong as wrong can be,”
things might not have been so grim as they seemed.
“Our Capitol
should never be compromised and those who broke the law deserve to face legal
repercussions and full accountability,” McCarthy added. “Unfortunately, one
year later, the majority party seems no closer to answering the central
question of how the Capitol was left so unprepared and what must be done to
ensure it never happens again. Instead, they are using it as a partisan
political weapon to further divide our country.” (See Attachments Nine, A and B)
Senateside, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky concurred, calling Jan. 6 “a dark day” for all Americans, and said the
Capitol “was stormed by criminals who brutalized police officers and used force
to try to stop Congress from doing its job.”
McConnell, who excused himself from the Paper Anniversary on
account of leading a delegation of Republicans to attend the funeral of former
member Johnny Isakson of Georgia (USA Today) now says: “It has been stunning to
see some Washington Democrats try to exploit this anniversary to advance
partisan policy goals.”
Quite
a flip-flop over the course of a year.
For the commemoration, NBC News compiled a roster of Republican
politicians and what they said within a week of the insurrection. How different they bark now!
House
Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) 1/13/21
Let
me be clear: Last week’s violent attack on the Capitol was undemocratic,
un-American and criminal…And make no mistake: Those who are responsible for
Wednesday’s chaos will be brought to justice…The president bears responsibility
for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.
Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) 2/13/21
January
6th was a disgrace... American citizens attacked their own government. They
used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did
not like... Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the
Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President...
They
did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on
Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.
See
more pivoteers and some of their full statements as
Attachment Ten.
A
particularly poignant pivot from Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was plucked from
history’s dumpster by Esquire Magazine on the Paper Anniversary…
From
Lindsey, 2021...
“Trump
and I have had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh my God, I hate
it. From my point of view, he's been a consequential president. But today...first
thing you'll see.
“All
I can say is: Count me out.”
And
this tweet, one year later after President Joe’s speech…
“What
brazen politicization of January 6 by President Biden!
“I
wonder if the Taliban who now rule Afghanistan with al-Qaeda elements present,
contrary to President Biden’s beliefs, are allowing this speech to be carried?”
See
more Graham crackery and a few choice
from the Wall Street Journal as Attachment Eleven.
And
where would America be without Mitt Romney?
The Trump-hating (and hated-by-Trump) RINO… still voting with his fellow
deplorables to suppress the vote and kill Joe’s bill on “social”
infrastructure… at least expressed a modicum of gratitude at the Capitol Police
who saved his life, stating: “It is because of their courage that Congress
ultimately fulfilled its responsibility to count the votes and that the
transfer of power continued unimpeded.”
“During the riot, and in the hours and days that followed,
we got some rare honesty from Republicans who never in their lives would’ve
said a cross word against Donald Trump,” Newell opined in the aforementioned
Slate (See Attachment Twelve). “Many of those who condoned, or egged on,
Trump’s stolen election narrative surrendered their guard to the rawness of the
moment.”
That
left Trump’s base, faces yellow and sticky with raw egg, clinging as Tovia Smith of NPR alleged one day before the “(o)ne
year after the insurrection”, to the “Big Lie”… Djonald’s claim that the election was stolen.
Identifying
as Red or Blue, or as a die-hard Trumper or anti-Trumper, has become a kind of "mega identity,"
meta? as it's been dubbed by Lilliana Mason, a Johns Hopkins University
associate professor of political science solicited by Smith, told her that
partisan identity has become “a kind of mega-identity” (or,
with the subsequent Facebook poster purge and cosmetic name change, a “meta
identity”? – DJI), a “fever dream” wherein they identify being a “winner”
with the cruel, bombastic (and defeated) President.
“That's
just like the most primitive human instincts to follow the good feelings, not
the bad feelings." (See Attachment Thirteen)
“I
felt so patriotic, like I was one of the Founding Fathers before everything
started against King George and the British,” one Keith Scott told USA
Today.
“I
feel bad about the violence that happened that day and the loss of life on both
sides, but moving that part to the side, I felt like we were having our voices
heard. That’s what I wanted to happen that day.”
Still
clinging to Trump… if only because the Republican Party upon whom they depend
remains clingy and committed (54% would re-nominate The Donald as opposed to
11% polled by Florida Gov. Ron deSantis and then on
down from there), the dark money donors…
And,
indeed, he post-electoral, post-Presidential news for 2020’s loser hasn’t been
all bad. Whether out of belief, pity or
vengeance, the base… rich and poor and somewhere in between… have been opening
their purses, tearing folding money from their pockets and their wallets and
throwing it at the once and future Fuhrer in the manner of ancient Israelites
hurling their property at the Golden Calf (or, perhaps more recently, certain
televangelists of note).
And,
of course, The Djonald’s revenge was sweet after Star
Chamber supernova Kinzinger was quietly but firmly
redistricted into oblivion; the Hill (Dec. 8, 2021) reporting
that the renegade had would, instead, be focusing on the “broader fight
nationwide” against Trumpism.
As a
lobbyist and fundraiser.
“My
suspicion is that Adam Kinzinger will become a lot more deft at concealing the way he’s deploying lobbyist and
special interest money to try to remake the Republican Party in their image —
not President Trump’s,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a
top Trump ally, told The Hill… “I wouldn’t want to run as a candidate in a
Republican primary, taking money from Adam Kinzinger’s
PAC, but I don’t suspect that he’ll be offering,” Gaetz
added.
There
have been a few discouraging words, added to Kinzinger’s,
the Cheneys and others… Karl Rove, a former senior
adviser in the George W. Bush administration and political commentator, penned
an op-ed for the Wall
Street Journal, condemning the mob violence and positing that: “If
Democrats had done what some Trump supporters did on that violent Jan. 6,
Republicans would have criticized them mercilessly and been right to do so.
“Republicans would have torched any high
official who encouraged violence or stood mute while it was waged and been
right to do so. Republicans would have demanded an investigation to find who
was responsible for the violence and been right to do so,” he added in a
podcast for U.K.’s Independent,
But although
Rove’s meal ticket… the Bush boys and their enthusiasts on Wall Street… have
secured for him a comfortable retirement in Texas, the masterplotter
of the campaigns against gay marriage and Gov. Ann Richards and for Texas
Republicans like Rick Perry, Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison, John Cornyn and
for the Iraq War no longer appears to have any skin in the game for the
midterms, let alone in support of any alt-Trump candidate in 2024.
Rove
mentioned no names, but the op-ed landed the same day Texas Republican U.S.
Sen. Ted Cruz… sometimes floated as an acceptable alt-right alternative in
2024, felt compelled to “crawdad back” on his recent statement calling the insurrection a
"terrorist attack", thus soiling his diaper with the base.
The prospects for
Rove’s (or anyone’s) obstructing Djonald Undead’s path to resurrection seem bleak.
Two days ago,
another second-tier 2024 hopeful, Florida’s “Little” Marco Rubio… after
declaiming that “upscale media liberals” (which many interpreted as a dog
whistle for Jews), fired off a bizarre rant about the presumed diet and
exercise habit of saidliberals – his scoffing at
MSNBC, Pelotons, caramel macchiato and the New York Times drawing the sarcastic
response from uber-liberal lateniter Stephen Colbert
that the high-caloric beverage purveyed by Starbucks, among others, would be
anathema to any proper Peloton-progressive.
(See Attachments Fourteen A and B)
Jokers also went
wild over the One Six… particularly the Q-Anon Shaman… and many are tired and
disgusted enough to regard the whole show as a movie: grist for the late night comedians and stand-up macchiato sipping
liberals. “Three decades into
21st-century America, here are a few things that seem to have left the
building,” posited Owen Gleiberman of Variety (yes, the riot was also a really
big shew!) “…respect, gentlemen, and Republicans (like Liz Cheney) who don’t
pander to QAnon-level conspiracy fantasy. (See Attachment Fifteen)
The more sober (in print, if not in practice) mediots… up or downscale… had their various takes upon the
ceremony and Paper Anniversary, depending on their employers.
Marco’s
despicable (and Starbucks-stained) New York Times denied that the insurrection
was a left-wing or antifa false flag plot:
“The reimagining of Jan. 6 has not so much evolved as it has
splintered into rival, but often complementary, false narratives with a common
goal — to shift blame away from Mr. Trump, his supporters and a Republican
Party maneuvering to win back control of government. The riot was a “false
flag” operation by antifa, the loose left-wing collective; the F.B.I. planted
agents to stir up the crowd; the protesters were mere “tourists” wrongfully
accused by a Democratic-led Justice Department and vilified by a biased
mainstream media; police officers recounting their injuries and trauma were
“crisis actors.’” (See Attachment
Sixteen)
An editorial by Sidney Blumenthal (hint, Marco, stroke nose... hint! - dji)
in the liberal Guardian UK castigated the White House clown car as a “dastardly cast of characters” and reiterated the by-now-old-global
trope of Trump’s first reply to McCarthy at the height of the
insurrection: reiterating “the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached
the Capitol”, according to
the Republican representative Jaime Herrera Beutler.
McCarthy argued:
“It’s not Antifa, it’s Maga. I know. I was there.” “Well, Kevin,” said Trump,
“I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” “Who the
fuck do you think you are talking to?” McCarthy
inquired in what Blumenthal called “an uncharacteristic display of testosterone
that soon was replaced with his regular order of servility before Trump and
Jordan,” and the editorialist credited Kevin with, perhaps, preventing a cop
versus cop shootout, claiming that: “(t)he absence of antifa, and McCarthy’s
refusal in the heat of the moment to lend credence to the phantom menace, may
have condemned any false-flag thought of invoking the Insurrection Act.” (See Attachment Seventeen)
Trump’s
beloved Breitbart even incongruously quoted Representative Peter Meijer (R-MI), one of 10 Republicans
who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet
the Press” that Republicans who rioted on January 6, 2021 had “riot envy”
toward the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020 after the
George Floyd killing. (See Attachment Eighteen)
And then, the elephants turned upon one
another... notably Tucker Carlson in a
head-banging, tusk-slashing jungle duel while, according to NPR, former Trump
deputy assistant and jump-off-the-cliff, sir loyalist Sebastian Gorka... currently fighting a subpoena for his phone records that was filed by the House select
committee that’s investigating the Jan. 6 attack... tweeting:
“I’m so done with Ted Cruz.” (See
Attachment Nineteen)
During Pelosi’s memorial to
the fallen and moment of silence (except for poor Ashlii)
she “also lauded lawmakers for following
through on their duty to certify the Electoral College vote in the early hours
of the morning after the riot.” (CNN, See Attachment Twenty)
Even the Republican wall of rejection as tried to rise up
between three and four on the morning of Jan. 7th?
"There have been continued assaults on our
democracy, undermining the sanctity of the vote and the integrity of our
elections, which are the basis of our democracy. Let us be true
to vision of our founders, who brilliantly established our democracy
and made it a model for the world," Pelosi said.
Her Number Two, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called for
all Americans to lower their flags to half-staff on the seventh in observance
of the breach of the Capitol a year ago. The flags at the Capitol are already
lowered.
“I am asking all Americans to join me today in lowering the
flag to half-staff at 2:11 p.m. – when the U.S. Capitol was first
breached – and raising it up again to its full height at 8:06 p.m., the
moment that Congress reconvened to continue its work for the people and to
affirm that our Constitution and our democracy had survived this assault
intact,” Hoyer said.
And
so, we ask, who will sort out the quick finishers and dead ducks from the body pile
of partisan plague victims being trundled off on horse-drawn carriages?
Why...
of course... the pollsters!
A NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National poll taken quick as a bunny for the Paper
Anniversary found deep partisan divisions underscoring people's perception of
the events, impact and aftermath of Jan. 6.
"Both Democrats and Republicans believe that
U.S. democracy is under threat," said Lee M. Miringoff,
director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "But they
overwhelmingly disagree over the meaning of the events of Jan. 6 and the
motivation behind the investigation into the events of that day."
(See Attachment Fourteen)
And the taxpayer-funded mediots
at its “All Things Considered” subsidiary conjured up the prospect of a
nationwide “Heil Drumpf!” movement, citing a survey from the University of Chicago, suggesting that “as many as 21
million adults sympathize with the rioters who violently stormed the U.S.
Capitol last January.”
Given the orchestration of the situation, Don Jones might
well assume that... if he is not one of the fortunate 21M... the vast majority
of those Trump-symps also believe in and practice the
Second Amendment – sentiments expressed, tho’ not
acted upon, by the Proud Boys rounded up yesterday and the day before,
including their eyepatched Captain Stewart Rhodes
who, if not convicted and sentenced to twenty years for the rarely prosecuted
“sedition” offenses, has a movie and or rum commercial in his future.
Even rarer than prosecutions for
sedition… including one inexplicable arrest of Albuquerque nurse Laura Berg,
who wrote a nasty letter criticizing the Bush/Cheney inaction on Hurricane
Katrina to the editor of a local rag Alibi, (followed up
by an interview)… are
convictions. (Berg’s case was dismissed after
massive public outcry.) Even the
ultra-liberal Mother Jones magazine has acknowledged that: “Since 1969, no one
has been convicted in the Supreme Court of the crime of engaging in speech that
could lead others to engage in unlawful conduct. The test is so demanding that
it’s almost impossible to satisfy.” (See
Attachment Fifteen)
Nonetheless, the Star Chamber is
going after even bigger game. Two days
before the Paper Anniversary, they filed papers upon Fox News host Sean Hannity
and his attorney, impeachment fighter Jay Sekulow. Hannity is being pressured to rat out Trump
adviser Mark Meadows… whom the Committee had on the hook and potentially about
to finger Trump with indictable offenses until he slipped off the hook,
claiming the same “Executive Privilege” defense used by the defeated
POTUS. Hanitty
had also been sharply critical of the committee and its work, saying on the air
Dec. 13 after his texts were revealed: “We’ve been telling you that this is a
waste of your time and money. They have a predetermined outcome.”
“Do we believe in privacy in this
country? Apparently not,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
Not to mention the small game. Sunday before the ceremony, Time reported on
the massive police takedown of a Florida man, Mason Courson,
accused of assault on a police officer as well as more full SWAT collars of
mopes and dopes who’d just wandered into the Capitol. To a swelling legion of POTheads,
not to mention attorneys charged with defending the insurrectionists…
nonviolent or non-nonviolent… the prosecutions are “political witch hunts”, or
as Fox News host Tucker Carlson asserted: “false flag operation(s) set up to
trap and purge Trump supporters in a new war on terror,” supporters like the
sucker who posted: “Overall, I had fun lol,” enraging U.S. District Judge Amy
Jackson who socked him with thirty days because: “The ‘lol’ particularly stuck
in my craw… nothing about Jan. 6 was funny,”
The number of Republicans who said
they thought it was “very important” to prosecute- those who broke into the
Capitol dropped from 50% in March 2021 to 27% in September-, according- to a
Pew Research poll and as the arrests and trials climb up towards and over the
thousand mark, it may fall further. Some
even view the mobsters as patriots and heroes.
In September, Trump himself released a statement in support of the Jan.
6 protest, saying, “Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted
so unfairly- relating to the January 6th protest concerning the Rigged
Presidential Election.”
On Dec. 22, in a courthouse in Miami, Time reported that Courson’s lawyer argued he had wanted only to attend
Trump’s widely publicized rally, not participate in a violent event. “This
became a chaotic situation,” he said. “Emotions took over for most of these
folks, and they found themselves in a situation that they never intended.” (See Attachment Nineteen A and NPR’s “full action tracker”)
And there the
matter sits, or squats, if you will after one year. Occasion enough for the players, spectators,
observers and parties of interest to wax loquacious upon the Anniversary.
It
will probably lack the resonance of Nine Eleven and eventually fade from the vale
of notoriety as the principals depart this mortal coil, most presumably of
natural causes, but the tributes and the tribulations as expressed by all sides
of the controvery have been writ large or small in
the papers of History…
And
now, Joe goes back to work...
On
the issue of voting rights... (See CNN, Attachment Twenty One,
pro, and Breitbart. Attachment Twenty Two, con)… Biden
and Harris journeyed to Georgia on Tuesday to oppose voter suppression
legislation sponsored by Gov. Brian Kemp (the “hero” of the One Six turned
alt-right after Trump dragooned the alter-alt right losing Senator David Perdue
into a primary challenge. They found a
fly on their peach. The meeting failed
to affect the two party holdouts on both voting and
the infrastructure bill… the aforesaid SineManchin.
“OK, let’s go find those aliens who
don’t like us!” – Major Don West (Mark Goddard) in same “Lost in Space”
|
|
JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2022 |
|
|
Saturday, January 8, 2022 Infected: 59,767,221 Dead: 837,262 Dow: 36,231.66 |
The
Men (and women) of Science (and punditry) now contend that the plague has
made the pivot from “pandemic” to “endemic”.
(Meaning that our new normal stays normal until at least, oh, 2050 or
so.) The masking and vaxxing
battles settle into a Federal versus State and Local tug-of-war with red
state/blue state overtones... bars, bagpipe recitals and Broadway shows
closing (or not); refuseniks fired from their jobs (or not); chaotic school
districts go back to virtual or remain open.
“We must keep our children in school!” appeals Ken Rogers of the
National Parents Union; the teachers’ unions ask how can that occur when all
of the teachers are sick or dead. The clock ticks down to nuclear war as
Russian troops inch closer to the Ukraine and help Kazakh forces massacre civilians
protesting doubling of fuel prices.
“Once the Russians are in hour home,” nods SecState
Blinken, “it’s difficult to get them to leave.” |
|
|
Sunday, January 9, 2022 Infected: 60,072,321 Dead: 837,594 |
Pediatric plague cases are now
overwhelming hospitals. TV Dr. Patel
gets it and expresses fear for his 8 month old
baby. AOC gets it. (The Fox does the fox trot and the hokey
pokey!)
Webb telescope launch called successful. It’s 3X better than Hubble and scientists
at NASA say “we are going to find things we never intended to find.” (Like hungry aliens?)
President Joe and Putin begin talks tomorrow. SecState Blinken says that we are going to have progress, or we
will go “down a different path.”
Questioned by George Stephanopolous, he says
that Russia has “legitimate concerns.”
A suddenly hawkish George snaps back: “What concerns?”
|
|
|
Monday, January 10, 2022 Infected: 61,556,085 Dead: 839,566 Dow: 35,756.37 |
Apartment fire kills 19 in the
Bronx, including seven children, blamed on space water heater. New Mayor (and former policeman) Adams
refuses to let ICE barge into the hospital, pull illegal aliens from their
beds and deport them... most are from Gambia.
Doctors say that cloth masks do not protect against the Big O...
suggest the scarce and expensive N-95 masks.
TV Dr. Celine Gounder says that Covid “will never go
away.” Tired infactees
want a new, new normal. So some doctors now say: “Stop being afraid and go back to
work.”
Dr. Fauci in pissing match with Sen. Rand
Paul (R-Ky) – accusing him of motivating crazies busted while trying to
assassinate himself and his family. On
a hot mike, he calls Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Ks) “a moron.” |
|
|
Tuesday, January 11, 2022 Infected: 62,308,132 Dead: 842,141 Dow: 36,252.02 |
Georgia celebrates as the Big Dawgs beat
Alabama to become National Champions.
With NFL playoff field set, it’s Black Monday for losing coaches of
the hapless Bears, Dolphins and Vikings.
Fresh off his fruitless talks with Lootin’
Putin (who says that Kazkhstan and Ukraine belong
to him, so America, butt out or get nuked), President Joe and Kamalala go to Georgia, where the liberals in his party
tell him they’re tired of speeches and want some action which, of course, the
Sinema Manchin axis won’t provide. He gives a speecy
anyway, saying: “I’m tired of being quiet.”
The Bern goes on late nite TV, says he
doesn’t understand Manchin (hint: it’s coal!) and, on the plague, says “I
think these are the hardest times in our lifetimes!” (And his included WW2!)
Gayle King goes on another talkshow and
says: “I’m tired of being tired and afraid of this (plague).” Surrender monkeys now advocate deliberately
going out and getting the Big-O in order to acquire immunity, if that’s
possible.
Surgeons transplant a pig’s heart into a human, who says “Oink!” |
|
|
Wednesday, January 12, 2022 Infected: 62,308,132 * (63,203,443) Dead: 842,141 * (844,562) Dow: 36,290.32 |
It’s Girl Scout Cookie Day!
Mitchy McConnell promises to create a
“logjam” to destroy every piece of legislation that the Democrats
propose. Americans, rich and powerful
or not, start saying No! more often... Medicare will not cover $28K Alzheimers’ treatments, mask and vaxxing
mandate mandatory firing of refuseniks deplete healthcare and retail,
resulting in dying patients and empty grocery shelves, complicated by
inflation which, says Fed, is the worst since 1982.
But there is some good news... plague infections keep rising, but are
starting to plateau in New York and a CDC report says that the Big O only
creates half the hospitalizations of Delta and ten percent of the deaths.
Even more good news... maybe... according to Forbes, chemical
compounds found in marijuana inhibit viral transmission. As evidence, the talkshows
point to Seth Rogan, Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg (none of whom have gotten
it). |
|
|
Thursday, January 13, 2022 Infected: 64,061,989 Dead: 846,453 Dow: 36,503.35 |
Authorities now concur that common cloth
masks are impotent against the newer strains of the Big O, but the
surgical-quality N95 plague fighters are allegedly easy to find and cheap, under
a dollar each. Some might look at
reality and disagree, but they are probably of that small, pitiless cadre of
deplorable and everything is fine, really, everything’s fine. As for the hospitals swamped by new
cases... especially a troubling and heartbreaking influx of infants... well,
the National Guard is being sent to six sick states to help out. The rest of the U.S. of A. is on its own. Al
Gore rises from wherever he had been sleeping... actually, a Tennessee farm
where he grows this and that and has a few cheery thoughts to spare: thanks
to Covid, pollution actually fell a smidgen,
although now it’s on the rise again; bad weather is caused by our using the
sky as an “open sewer”; and many Americans are “going from denial to despair
without the intermediate step of doing something about their problems.” Donating blood, for example, inasmuch as
the Red Cross reports that supplies have fallen to crisis levels – less than
a day’s reserve in some cases and places.
It’s not so pretty overseas either.
British PM BoJo is on the hot seat for a
Super Spreader shebang – critics say he should resign because “he broke the
rules to have a bottle of wine.” As
for Prince Andrew, more and more of his royal relatives concur with the desire
to settle his “degrading saga” and Queen Mommy is stripping him of his
princely perks and titles, presumably sending him to bed without his supper. |
|
|
Friday, January 14,
2022 Infected: 64,917,692 Dead: 849,238 Dow: 35,911.81 |
Bad times all around: for President Joe (SineManchin remains intransigient,
SCOTUS revokes his mask mandate) while
doctors now say the Big O is transmissible for ninety days (not five), the
various viral defendants high fiving each other as other diseases like the
flu, SARS, MERS, AIDS, etc. look on in admiration; for his enemies, being
hauled before the House Select Committee; for Houston Texans coach, fired
after his losing season, and, especially for Ukrainians, with Russians at
their door.
There is a little week-ending good news a page (just one page!) from
old Spiderman comic sells for 3.3M.
And student loan gouger Naviant settles its
predatory lending case and every graduate with a 50 or 60K debt burden can
count on a rebate of... $250, coming some day. |
|
|
*As we have already
noted, the death and infection lists from Johns
Hopkins can be erratic, day to day, but reliable over the course of a
week. Usually, this manifests via a
lowered weekend toll, made up once the work week begins and the reports come
in and are compiled. Wednesday,
however, some of the staff must have been out sick, or drunk, or attending
some wild party out where wild parties are held in Baltimore; the daily
reports that we diligently check and record at or around midnight were
(virtually) unchanged. By morning,
however, the aggregate total was back to the expected as the plague... now
driven by the more infectious but less deadly Big O, keeps chugging along to
the tune of about five million new cases per week and somewhat over ten thousand
fatalities every week. As an
alternative... when it appears that the second shift has taken time off...
there are the World-O-Meters statistics, but these tend to be higher (and
less verifiable) than JHS. In any
event, it now appears that perhaps 20% of all Americans have got it...
lending credence to the pessimistic contentions of some doctors that every
man, woman and child, eventually, will contact some variant or other,
hopefully while the Big O holds sway and before some newer, equally transmissible
and more lethal variant appears. If you believe the
media, Don Jones is being socked by inflation... at the grocers’, at the
pump, at the strippers’ bar and nail salon... and the sky is veritably
falling. True: 2021 overall inflation
rate was the highest in decades, but it was trending downward in December
and, of course, the still-falling unemployment gave the Don a healthy boost. PS (DJI): Take note of the magnitude of
plague infections (now nearly all Big-O) and either be very, very afraid, or
take solace from the more or less stagnant death toll (and that primarily
from accumulated ΔV
hospitalizations) lending credence to the U.K. and South African statistics
that Omicron is a weaker virus variant (perhaps due to its hybrid origen in a viral mashup with the common cold). And then have fear again, perhaps having
reread our earlier Lessons on plague life, sentience and morality... the next
new variant might be a hybrid of CV-19 with the flu (“flurona”... already
peeking its head out of the killpile) or AIDS or
smallpox or, to go medieval on Don Jones’ collective asses, bubonic. |
|
|
|
THE DON JONES
INDEX CHART of CATEGORIES
w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING…
approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013) See a further
explanation of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%) |
|
DON JONES’ PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDEX |
|
(45% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS) |
|
CATEGORY |
VALUE |
BASE |
RESULTS |
SCORE |
SCORE |
OUR SOURCES and COMENTS |
||
|
24% |
6/17/13 |
LAST |
CHANGE |
NEXT |
1/8/22 |
1/15/22 |
SOURCE |
|
|
Wages (hourly, per capita) |
9% |
1350 points |
12/10/21 |
+0.80% |
1/22/22 |
1,503.28 |
1,515.21 |
|
|
Median Income (yearly) |
4% |
600 |
1/8/22 |
+0.03% |
1/22/22 |
674.89 |
675.09 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 35,661 672 |
|
*Unempl. (BLS – in millions |
4% |
600 |
1/8/22 |
-7.69% |
1/22/22 |
514.72 |
514.72 |
|
|
*Official (DC – in millions) |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
+8.16% |
1/22/22 |
574.44 |
621.33 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 6,798
285 |
|
*Unofficl. (DC – in millions) |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
+3.05% |
1/22/22 |
491.47 |
506.46 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 11,792 443 |
|
Workforce Participtn.
Number
Percent |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
+1.01%
+0.425% |
1/22/22 |
324.40 |
325.78 |
In 156,060 out 99,826 Total: 255,886 |
|
WP % (ycharts)* |
1% |
150 |
1/8/22 |
+0.16% |
1/22/22 |
152.98 |
152.98 |
https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 61.90 |
|
OUTGO |
(15%) |
|||||||
|
Total Inflation |
7% |
1050 |
12/10/21 |
+0.5% |
1/22/22 |
956.88 |
951.22 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.5 |
|
Food |
2% |
300 |
12/10/21 |
+0.5% |
1/22/22 |
268.22 |
266.88 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.5 |
|
Gasoline |
2% |
300 |
12/10/21 |
-0.5% |
1/22/22 |
224.50 |
225.62 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
-0.5 |
|
Medical Costs |
2% |
300 |
12/10/21 |
+0.3% |
1/22/22 |
282.77 |
282.77 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
+0.3 nc |
|
Shelter |
2% |
300 |
12/10/21 |
+0.4% |
1/22/22 |
284.46 |
283.32 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.4 |
|
WEALTH |
(6%) |
|
||||||
|
Dow Jones Index |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
-0.88% |
1/22/22 |
386.52 |
383.11 |
|
|
Home (Sales)
(Valuation) |
1% 1% |
150 150 |
1/8/22 |
+1.89% +0.31% |
1/22/22 |
205.17 178.11 |
205.17 178.11 |
https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales
(M): 6.46 Valuations (K): 353.9 |
|
Debt (Personal) |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
-0.04% |
1/22/22 |
264.24 |
264.35 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 63,855 |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
AMERICAN ECONOMIC INDEX (15% of TOTAL
INDEX POINTS) |
||||||||
|
NATIONAL |
(10%) |
|
||||||
|
Revenue (trilns.) |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
+0.025% |
1/22/22 |
346.74 |
346.83 |
debtclock.org/ 4,055 056 |
|
Expenditures (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
-0.07% |
1/22/22 |
217.76 |
217.60 |
debtclock.org/ 6,881
886 |
|
National Debt tr.) |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
+0.36% |
1/22/22 |
309.61 |
308.49 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 29,701 809 |
|
Aggregate Debt (tr.) |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
+1.25% |
1/22/22 |
371.25 |
366.63 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 85,160 6,234 |
|
GLOBAL |
(5%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Foreign Debt (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
+0.17% |
1/22/22 |
270.20 |
269.75 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,759 7,772 |
|
Exports (in billions) |
1% |
150 |
12/3/21 |
+0.27% |
1/22/22 |
199.00 |
199.00 |
|
|
Imports (bl.) |
1% |
150 |
12/3/21 |
-4.44% |
1/22/22 |
109.00 |
109.00 |
|
|
Trade Deficit (bl.) |
1% |
150 |
12/3/21 |
+16.33% |
1/22/22 |
83.70 |
83.70 |
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 80.2 |
|
SOCIAL INDICES (40%)
|
||||||||
|
ACTS of MAN |
(12%) |
|||||||
|
World Affairs |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
-0.5% |
1/22/22 |
374.92 |
373.80 |
Ignored
and peeved, NoKo fires off missiles here and there
and, even, fron a rolling train. President Joe and Putin talk; Biden calls
it “promising”. It wasn’t. Bad Brits include Prince Andrew, whose
accuser is greenlighted to pursue the Prince while BoJo
excoriated for attending a super spreader party. |
|
Terrorism |
2% |
300 |
1/8/22 |
-0.8% |
1/22/22 |
217.70 |
216.61 |
Russia
accused of plotting “false flag” terrorism to invade and conquer Ukraine,
then Kazakhstan, then ???. Nuclear war? DOJ forms a new domestic terrorism squad. |
|
Politics |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
-0.3% |
1/22/22 |
442.99 |
440.93 |
Dr. Fauci exchanges harsh words with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky)
who, he says, inspires crazy men to try to kill his family... then calls Roger Marshall (R-Ks) “a moron”
on a hot mike. Rand then goes on a fund raising spree.
|
|
Economics |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
+0.1% |
1/22/22 |
406.21 |
406.62 |
Inflation
(above) up for 2021, but down for December.
Fed Reseve Chair Powell says inflation
threatens recovery. Vinyl had more
sales than CDs in 2021. Under pressure,
Bank of America cuts overdraft fees from $35 to $10. Refusenik firings decimate supply chain,
leading to empty retail shelves and gas pumps and, in California, grocery
clerks go out on strike. |
|
Crime |
1% |
150 |
1/8/22 |
+0.1% |
1/22/22 |
236.58 |
236.82 |
Fed Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida
resigns in vicious corruption scandal.
Hungry Californ kills slow Taco Bell window
clerk. British cocker spaniel rescued
from dognappers after eight years. Apple airtag
surveillance devices being used by kidnappers, dognappers
and aggressive stalkers. |
|
ACTS of GOD |
(6%) |
|
||||||
|
Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
-0.3% |
1/22/22 |
376.43 |
375.67 |
The week
begins with Western flooding and landslides, Midwestern blizzards and Eastern
freeze, ends with Western tsunami, Midwestern blizzards and Eastern freeze
with a new twist: Black Ice. (A new
rapper or Marvel movie character?) |
|
Natural/Unnatural Disaster |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
-0.3% |
1/22/22 |
218.40 |
219.93 |
NOAA ranks
top 20 Disasters of 2021 – Hurrican Ida takes
Number One. Nineteen die in fire in
the Bronx. Blactivists
call the fire “racist”. Brazilian
boulder falls off cliff onto boat, six killed. Miracle medical helicopter crash in
Philadelphia, all safe inc. 2
month old baby. |
|
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX (15%) |
||||||||
|
Science, Tech, Education |
4% |
600 |
1/8/22 |
+0.3% |
1/22/22 |
408.52 |
409.34 |
NASA opens
up new golden Webb Space Telescope.
Snazzy new apps (and plenty of disease) at maskless
and socially undistant Vegas hi-tech conference. Chicago teachers settle strike. |
|
Equality (econ/social) |
4% |
600 |
1/8/22 |
+0.5% |
1/22/22 |
410.88 |
412.11 |
Yankees
hire first female manager for their Tampa minor league franchise. Amy Schneider becomes first woman to win a
million on Jeopardy. New quarters roll out featuring women like Maya Angelou,
Sally Ride. |
|
Health Plague |
4% |
600 |
1/8/22 |
-0.3% -0.1% |
1/22/22 |
396.86 - 103.65 |
395.67 - 103.96 |
“Infant Angel” baby formula recalled for greasing babies’
path to Heaven. Tainted ground beef
recalled from Kroger and WalMart. Surgeons transplant pig heart into
humans. Medicare refuses to authorize
a 28K treatment for Alzheimers.
|
|
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
+0.2% |
1/22/22 |
465.04 |
465.97 |
Baldwin
investigation trumbles on – fingers now pointed at
the new main suspect – the bullet!
Already sentenced to life, three Arbury defendants go back to Fed.
Court to determine whether they expressed “hate”. California Gov. Newsom
rejects parole for Sirhan Sirhan. Capitol probers trolling for rats...
disloyal SecPress Kayley McAnany
promises to inform on her old boss, roll out new targets (Sens. Jim Jordan
and Scott Perry) as the Dread Pirate Oathkeeper
Rhodes goes off to jail (where he can get more tattoos). |
|
MISCELLANEOUS
and TRANSIENT INDEX (7%) |
||||||||
|
Cultural incidents |
3% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
+0.4% |
1/22/22 |
535.76 |
537.90 |
Georgia
wins college football championship.
NFL playoff field set – games begin tonight. NDjokovich and
agent, Britney and sisters blame each other for bad karma. Coachella aspires to return in 2022 with
Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and “Ye”. John Legend follows Bruce and Bowie selling
his catalog. Under racist cloud,
Golden Globes unspools in secret. Rumours that Tom Holland (“Spiderman”) will host
Oscars. Eulogies for the dead:
President Joe calls Harry Reid “a searchlight, not a spotlight”, Denzel and
other remember Sidney Poitier as a “pioneer”.
Media dis actor Dwayne Hickman (”Dobie
Gillis) with zero coverage or even notification while lauding Bob Saget (“Full House”).
Also RIP: Woodstock promoter Michael Lang, jazz musician James Mfume,,
singer Ronnie Spector, NFL receiver Don Maynard, “Bachelorette” alum Clint Artis at 34. ROH:
killer/real estate speculator Robert Durst. |
|
Miscellaneous incidents |
4% |
450 |
1/8/22 |
+0.2% |
1/22/22 |
489.83 |
491.30 |
“Nightmare
on Elm Street” house sells for $3M. Single
page of old Spiderman komik sells for $3.3M. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Don Jones Index for the week of
January 8th through January 14th, 2022 was UP 46.79 points.
The Don Jones Index is sponsored
by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent
Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator.
The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well
as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell,
environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna
Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The
Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial
“Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties
promulgating this and/or other such slanders.
Comments,
complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.
ATTACHMENT ONE – From NPR
READ PRESIDENT
BIDEN'S JAN. 6 SPEECH IN FULL
January 6, 2022 12:48 PM ET by NPR STAFF
Without uttering former President Donald
Trump’s name, President Biden
issued a scathing critique of his predecessor on the anniversary of the Jan. 6
insurrection.
Biden condemned the attack on the U.S.
Capitol, undertaken by Trump supporters one year ago, and said Trump himself
spun a “web of lies” about the 2020 presidential election that fueled the
violence.
Read a full transcript of
Biden’s remarks below. Follow live
updates of the day’s events here.
Madam Vice President, my fellow
Americans: to state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place,
Democracy was attacked. Simply attacked. The will of the people was under
assault. The Constitution, our constitution faced the gravest of threats. Outnumbered
in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan
Police Department, the National Guard and other brave law enforcement officials
saved the rule of law. Our democracy held. We the people endured. We the people
prevail.
For the first time in our history, a
president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful
transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol. But they failed. They
failed. And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such attack
never, never happens again.
I’m speaking to you today from Statuary
Hall in the United States Capitol. This is where the House of Representatives
met for 50 years in the decades leading up to the Civil War.
This is – on this floor is where a young
congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, sat at desk 191. Above him, above
us over that door, leading into the rotunda is a sculpture depicting Clio, the
muse of history. In her hands, an open book, in which she records the events
taking place in this chamber below. Clio stood watch over this hall, one year
ago today, as she has for more than 200 years. She recorded what took place:
the real history, the real facts, the real truth, the facts and the truth that
Vice President Harris just shared, and that you and I and the whole world saw
with our own eyes.
The Bible tells us that we shall know the
truth and the truth shall make us free. We shall know the truth. Well, here is
the God’s truth about January 6, 2021. Close your eyes. Go back to that day.
What do you see?
Rioters rampaging, waving for the first
time inside this Capitol, the confederate flag that symbolized the cause to
destroy America, to rip us apart. Even during the Civil War, that never, ever
happened. But it happened here in 2021.
What else do you see? A mob, breaking
windows, kicking in doors, breaching the Capitol, American flags on poles being
used as weapons as spears, fire extinguishers being thrown at the heads of
police officers. A crowd that professes their love for law enforcement assaulted
those police officers, dragged them, sprayed them, stomped on them.
Over 140 police officers were injured. We
all heard the police officers who were there that day testified to what
happened. One officer called it quote “a medieval battle” and that he was more
afraid that day than he was fighting the war in Iraq.
They’ve repeatedly asked since that day,
how dare anyone, anyone diminish belittle or deny the hell they were put
through? We saw with our own eyes rioters menace these
halls, threatening the life of the Speaker of the House, literally erecting
gallows to hang the vice president of the United States of America.
What do we not see? We didn’t see a
former president who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in the private
dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on
television and doing nothing for hour, as police were assaulted. Lives at risk.
The nation’s capital under siege.
This wasn’t a group of tourists. This is
an armed insurrection. They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people.
They were looking to deny the will of the people. They were looking to uphold –
they weren’t looking to hold a free and fair election. They were looking to
overturn one. They weren’t looking to save the cause of America. They were
looking to subvert the Constitution. This isn’t about being bogged down in the
past. This is about making sure the past isn’t buried.
That’s the only way forward. That’s what
great nations do. They don’t bury the truth. They face up to it. It sounds like
hyperbole, but that’s the truth. They face up to it. We are a great nation.
My fellow Americans in life, there’s
truth. And tragically, there are lies. Lies conceived and spread for profit and
power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie. And
here’s the truth: the former president of the United States of America has
created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so because
he values power over principle.
Because he sees his own interest as more
important than his country’s interest and America’s interest. And because his
bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our constitution. He
can’t accept he lost. Even though that’s what 93 United States senators, his
own attorney general, his own vice president, governors and state officials in
every battleground state have all said: he lost.
That’s what 81 million of you did as you
voted for a new way forward. He has done what no president in American history,
the history of this country has ever, ever done. He refused to accept the
results of an election and the will of the American people.
While some courageous men and women in
the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principle of
that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else.
They seem no longer to want to be the party, the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower,
Reagan, the Bushes.
But whatever my other disagreements are
with Republicans who support the rule of law and not the role of a single man,
I will always seek to work together with them, to find shared solutions where
it possible.
Because if we have a shared belief in
democracy, that anything is possible. Anything.
And so at this
moment, we must decide, what kind of nation are we going to be? Are we going to
be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? Are we going to be a
nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally
expressed will of the people?
Are we going to be a nation that lives
not by the light of the truth but under the shadow of lies? We cannot allow
ourselves to be that kind of nation. The way forward is to recognize the truth
and to live by it.
The Big Lie being told by the former
president and many Republicans who fear his wrath is that the insurrection in
this country actually took place on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020.
Think about that. Is that what you
thought? Is that what you thought when you voted that day? Taking part in an
insurrection, is that what you thought you were doing, or did you think you
were carrying out your highest duty as a citizen and voting?
The former president’s supporters are
trying to rewrite history. They want you to see Election Day as the day of
insurrection. And the riot that took place there on January 6th as a
true expression of the will of the people.
Can you think of a more twisted way to
look at this country, to look at America? I cannot.
Here’s the truth. The election of 2020
was the greatest demonstration of democracy in the history of this country.
More of you voted in that election than have ever voted in all of American
history. Over 150 million Americans went to the polls and voted that day in a
pandemic. Some at great risk to their lives. They should be applauded, not
attacked.
Right now in
state after state, new laws are being written. Not to protect the vote, but to
deny it. Not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it, not to strengthen or
protect our democracy, but because the former president lost. Instead of
looking at election results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better
ideas to win more votes, the former president and his supporters have decided
the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our
elections.
It’s wrong. It’s undemocratic, and
frankly, it’s un-American. The second Big Lie being told by the former
president’s supporters is that the results of the election 2020 can’t be
trusted. The truth is that no election, no election in American history has
been more closely scrutinized or more carefully counted.
Every legal challenge questioning the
results and every court in this country that could have been made was made and
was rejected, often rejected by Republican-appointed judges, including judges
appointed by the former president himself from state courts to the United
States Supreme Court. Recounts were undertaken in state after state. Georgia –
Georgia counted its results three times, with one recount by hand.
Phony partisan audits were undertaken
long after the election in several states. None changed the results. And in
some of them, the irony is the margin of victory actually grew slightly.
So let’s speak plainly about what happened in 2020. Even before the
first ballot was cast, the former president was preemptively sowing doubt about
the election results. He built his lie over months. It wasn’t based on any
facts. He was just looking for an excuse, a pretext to cover for the truth.
He’s not just a former president. He’s a defeated former president. Defeated by
a margin of over seven million of your votes. In a full and free and fair
election.
There is simply zero proof the election
results are inaccurate. In fact, in every venue where evidence had to be
produced and oath to tell the truth had to be taken, the former president
failed to make his case.
Just think about this, the former
president and his supporters have never been able to explain how they accept as
accurate the other election results that took place on November 3rd.
The elections for governor. United States Senate. House of Representatives.
Elections, in which they closed the gap in the House. They challenged none of
that. The president’s name was first. Then we went down the line, governors,
senators, House of Representatives.
Somehow, those results are accurate on
the same ballot. But the presidential race was flawed? And on the same ballot,
the same day, cast by the same voters? The only difference, the former
president didn’t lose those races. He just lost the one that was his own.
Finally, the third Big Lie being told by
a former president and supporters is that the mob who sought to impose their
will through violence are the nation’s true patriots. Is that what you thought
when you looked at the mob ransacking the Capitol, destroying property,
literally defecating in the hallways? Rifling through the desks of senators and
representatives? Hunting down members of congress. Patriots? Not my view.
To me, the true patriots for the more
than 150 Americans who peacefully expressed their vote at the ballot box. The
election workers who protected the integrity of the vote and the heroes who
defended this Capitol. You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t
obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace
and enable lies.
Those who stormed this Capitol and those
who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger
at the throat of America, at American democracy.
They didn’t come here out of patriotism
or principle. They came here in rage. Not in service of America but rather in
service of one man. Those who incited the mob, the real plotters who are
desperate to deny the certification of this election, and defy the will of the
voters. But their plot was foiled; congressmen, Democrats, Republicans stayed.
Senators, representatives, staff, they finished their work, the Constitution
demanded. They honored their oath to defend the Constitution against all
enemies, foreign and domestic.
Look folks, now it’s up to all of us — to
We the People — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of
democracy, to keep the promise of America alive. The promise is at risk.
Targeted by the forces that value brute strength. Over the sanctity of
democracy. Fear over hope. Personal gain over public good.
Make no mistake about it, we’re living at
an inflection point in history, both at home and abroad. We’re engaged anew in
a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many
and the greed of the few. Between the people’s right of self-determination and
self-seeking autocrat. From China to Russia and beyond, they’re betting the
democracies’ days are numbered – they’ve actually told me democracy is too
slow, too bogged down by division to succeed in today’s rapidly changing,
complicated world.
And they’re betting, they’re betting
America will become more like them and less like like
us. They’re betting in America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the
strongman. I do not believe that. That is not who we are. That is not who we
have ever been. And that is not who we should ever, ever be.
Our founding fathers, as imperfect as
they were, set in motion, an experiment that changed the world, literally
changed the world. Here in America, the people would rule. Power would be
transferred peacefully. Never the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun. They
committed paper and idea that couldn’t live up to – they couldn’t live up to,
but an idea it couldn’t be constrained.
Yes, in America, all people are created
equal. Reject the view that if you, if you succeed, I fail. If you get ahead, I
fall behind. If I hold you down, I somehow lift myself up.
The former president who lies about this
election and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from
the core American values. They want to rule or they will ruin. Ruin when our
country fought for at Lexington and Concord at Gettysburg and Omaha Beach,
Seneca Falls, Selma, Alabama. What – and what we were fighting for: The right
to vote. The right to govern ourselves. The right to determine our own destiny.
With rights come responsibilities. The
responsibility to see each other as neighbors. Maybe we disagree with that
neighbor, but they’re not an adversary. The responsibility to accept defeat,
then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your case. The
responsibility to see that America is an idea. An idea that requires vigilant
stewardship.
As we stand here today, one year since
January 6, 2021, the lies that drove the anger and madness we saw on this
place, they have not abated. So we have to be firm,
resolute and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and have that vote
counted.
Some have already made the ultimate
sacrifice in this sacred effort. Jill and I have mourned police officers in
this Capitol rotunda not once, but twice in the wake of January 6th.
Once to honor Officer Brian Sicknick, who lost his
life the day after the attack. The second time to honor Officer Billy Evans,
who lost his life defending the Capitol as well.
We think about the others who lost their
lives and were injured and everyone living with the trauma of that day. From
those defending this Capitol to members of Congress in both parties and their
staffs to reporters, cafeteria workers, custodial workers and their families.
Don’t kid yourself. The pain and scars
from that day run deep. I’ve said it many times and it’s no more true or real
when we think about the events of January 6th. We are in a battle
for the soul of America. A battle that by the grace of God and the goodness and
greatness of this nation, we will win.
Believe me: I know how difficult
democracy is. And I’m crystal clear about the threats America faces. But I also
know that our darkest days can lead to light and hope. From the death and
destruction as the vice president referenced in Pearl Harbor can the triumph
over the forces of fascism. From the brutality of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund
Pettus Bridge came a historic voting rights legislation.
So now let’s step up. Write the next
chapter in American history, where January six marks not the end of democracy
but the beginning of a renaissance of liberty and fair play.
I did not seek this fight right to this
Capitol year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in
this breach. I will defend this nation, and I will allow no one to place a
dagger at the throat of democracy. We will make sure the will of the people is
heard. That the ballot prevails, not violence. That authority of this nation
will always be peacefully transferred. I believe the power of the presidency
and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it.
To lift us up. Not tear us apart. It’s
about us, not about me. Deep in the heart of America, burns a flame lit almost
250 years ago of liberty, freedom and equality. This is not the land of kings
or dictators or autocrats.
We’re a nation of laws of order, not
chaos, of peace, not violence. Here in America, the people rule, through the
ballot. And their will prevails. So let’s remember
together, we’re one nation under God, indivisible, that today, tomorrow and
forever, at our best, we are the United States of America.
God bless you all. May God protect our
troops. My God bless those who stand watch over our democracy.
AND
ATTACHMENT ONE (A) – From NPR
PRESIDENT BIDEN
BLASTS TRUMP FOR 'SPREADING A WEB OF LIES' IN A JAN. 6 SPEECH
By Brian Naylor Updated January 6, 2022 2:07 PM ET
President Biden marked the anniversary of
the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol with a scathing speech in which he strongly
condemned the violence and said his predecessor, Donald Trump, "has
created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election."
Speaking from Statuary Hall just
outside the House chamber, Biden said that "for the first time time in our history, a president not just lost the
election, he tried to prevent a peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob
breached the Capitol."
"We must make sure that never
happens again."
Thursday marks one year since a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building hoping to block
lawmakers from certifying Biden's 2020 election win.
Biden never uttered Trump's name in his
speech, but he referred repeatedly to the former president with forceful, and
at times personal, denunciations of his actions. Trump, Biden said,
"values power over principle." His "bruised ego matters more to
him than our democracy," the president continued, adding, "He can't
accept that he lost."
"He's not just a former
president," Biden said of Trump. "He's a defeated former
president."
He said Trump sat in the White House
"watching it all on television and doing nothing" as police were
assaulted and "the nation's Capitol was under
siege."
Biden said the U.S. is in "a battle
for the soul of America."
"I did not seek this fight brought
to this Capitol one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either,"
he said. "I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I
will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy."
Speaking to reporters later, Biden said
he wanted to "face the truth" in his speech in order to heal.
"You can't pretend. This is serious
stuff." Biden said "You've got to face it. That's what great nations
do. They face the truth, deal with it and move on."
Trump responded to Biden with a response charging that Democrats
"want to own this day of Jan. 6 so they can stoke fears and divide
America. I say, let them have it because America sees through theirs lies and
polarizations."
Harris marked the day in a speech before
Biden
Vice President Harris said the "American
spirit is being tested."
"The answer to whether we will meet
that test resides where it has always resided in our country, with you, the
people," she said.
Harris said "the work ahead will not
be easy" and called on the Senate to pass voting rights legislation — an
unlikely prospect unless the Senate changes its rules to prevent a
Republican-led filibuster.
"We cannot sit on the
sidelines," Harris said. "We must unite in defense of our
democracy."
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., called Jan. 6, 2021, "a dark day for our country,"
he accused Democrats of trying to "exploit this anniversary to advance
partisan policy goals that long predated this event."
He added: "It is especially jaw-dropping
to hear some Senate Democrats invoke the mob's attempt to disrupt our country's
norms, rules and institutions as a justification to discard our norms, rules,
and institutions themselves."
Rep. Liz Cheney and her father, former
Vice President Dick Cheney, were in the House chamber
Democratic lawmakers planned a daylong
series of events at the Capitol to mark the anniversary, ranging from a moment
of silence on the House floor to a conversation with historians Doris Kearns
Goodwin and Jon Meacham, moderated by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The
day's events, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "are intended as an
observance of reflection, remembrance and recommitment, in a spirit of unity,
patriotism and prayerfulness."
Later, there will be a prayer vigil on
the Capitol steps led by Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Lawmakers will also have the opportunity to share their reflections of the day.
After the moment of silence, Pelosi spoke
on the House floor, telling lawmakers that last year's insurrection sought
"not only to attack the building, but to undermine democracy itself."
It failed, she said, "thanks to the
bravery" of lawmakers — because Congress came back to certify Biden's 2020
win — and she also honored others, including the Capitol police, who protected
the complex that day.
She made her short remarks to a nearly
empty chamber. The House is out of session this week — and COVID-19 cases have
been surging nationwide and also on the Hill. Only a few dozen House members, many of whom were locked in the
chamber last year as rioters invaded the building, were present. The only
Republicans in attendance were Rep. Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice
President Dick Cheney.
In a statement, Cheney had harsh words
for his fellow Republicans: "I am deeply disappointed at the failure of
many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the January 6 attacks
and the ongoing threat to our nation."
GOP lawmakers generally have not been
participating in the memorial ceremonies. Some are attending the funeral in
Georgia of former Sen. Johnny Isakson. Trump allies Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have planned their own "Republican response" for Thursday
afternoon.
In a letter to Republicans on Sunday, House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy charged that Democrats had politicized the
anniversary, using it as a "partisan political weapon to further divide
our country."
ATTACHMENT
ONE B – From CNN
BIDEN CALLS OUT 3 "BIG LIES" THAT TRUMP AND HIS ALLIES HAVE PUSHED
AS "TWISTED"
By Kevin
Liptak
President
Biden outlined what he called three "big lies" that former President
Trump and supporters have pushed before and after Jan. 6, 2021.
Biden said
they are trying to rewrite history by claiming the first "big lie,"
that the insurrection actually took place on Election Day.
Biden said
it is a "twisted" way to look at America.
"The
election of 2020 was the greatest demonstration of democracy in
the history of this country. More of you voted in that election than
have ever voted in all of American history. Over 150 million
Americans went to the polls and voted that day — in a pandemic, some at
great risk to their lives. They should be applauded,
not attacked," Biden said.
"The
former president and supporters have decided the only way for them to
win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections. It is
wrong. It's undemocratic. And frankly it's un-American," Biden
said.
Biden said
that the second "big lie" being told by the former president and
his allies is that the results of the 2020 election can't be
trusted.
Biden
slammed "phony partisan audits" that repeatedly showed there was no
voter fraud in the election.
"Let's
speak plainly about what happened in 2020. Even before the first
ballot was cast, the former president was preemptively sowing doubt
about the election results. He built his lie over months, wasn't
based in any facts. He was just looking for an excuse, a pretext, to
cover for the truth," Biden said.
"He's
not just a former president. He's a defeated former president,
defeated by a margin of over 7 million of your votes. A full and free
and fair election. There is simply zero proof the election
results were inaccurate," he continued.
Biden said
the third "big lie" from Trump and others was that the Capitol
rioters were patriots.
"Is
that what you thought? When you looked at the mob ransacking the
Capitol, destroying property, literally defecating in the hallways
... hunting down members of Congress, patriots? Not in my
view. To me, the true patriots were the more than 150 Americans
who peacefully expressed their vote at the ballot box," he said.
In remarks
to mark one year since the deadly insurrection on the US Capitol, President
Biden took aim at the "lies" spread by former President Donald Trump
and his lack of action to stop the insurrection as it unfolded before the eyes
of the world.
"We saw
with our own eyes rioters menace these halls, threatening the life of the
speaker of the house, literally erecting gallows to hang the vice president
of the United States of America. What did we not see? We didn't
see a former president, who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in
the private dining room off the Oval office in the White House, watching
it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police
were assaulted, lives at risk, the nation's
capitol under siege," Biden said.
"This
wasn't a group of tourists. This was an armed insurrection. They
weren't looking to uphold the will of the people. They were looking
to deny the will of the people," the President continued.
Biden said
Trump conceived and spread lies "for profit and power."
"Here's
the truth: A former President of the United States of America has
created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's
done so because he values power over principle. Because he sees his
own interest as more important than his country's interest,
and America's interest. And because his bruised ego matters more
to him than our democracy or our Constitution. He can't accept he lost
even though that's what 93 United States senators, his
own attorney general, his own vice president, governors and
state officials in every battleground state have all said he
lost," Biden said.
"That's
what 81 million of you did as you voted for a new way forward. He's
done what no President in American history, the history of this
country, has ever, ever done: He refused to accept the
results of an election and the will of the American people,"
Biden said.
The
President called out some "courageous men and women on the Republican
party" standing up for the truth "trying to uphold the principle
of that party" but said there are too many others
"transforming that party into something else."
"Whatever
my other disagreements are with Republicans to support the rule of
law and not the rule of a single man, I will always seek to work
together with them. To find shared solutions where possible, because
we have a shared belief in democracy, then anything is
possible," Biden added.
Biden made 16 references to "the former president." Here's what
he said.
President
Biden marked the first anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by forcefully calling out former
President Trump for attempting to undo American democracy, saying such an
insurrection must never happen again.
In a speech
that lasted just under 30 minutes, Biden made a passionate case for defending
the nation's founding ideals from the threats posed by Trump and the violent
mob that stormed the Capitol one year ago. Biden made
reference to "the former president" 16 times in his speech,
including lines accusing him of "losing," "failing,"
"losing," and "lying."
Here are the references:
1. "What did we not see? We didn't see a former
president who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in the
private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching
it all on television."
2. "A former president of the United States of America has
created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election."
3. "The big lie being told by the former president, and
many Republicans who fear his wrath, is that the insurrection in
this country actually took place on Election Day."
4. "Former president's supporters are trying to rewrite
history."
5. "The former president lost instead of looking at the
election results from 2020."
6. "The former president and supporters have decided the
only way for them to win is to suppress your vote."
7. "Second big lie being told by the former president's
supporters is that the results of the election of 2020 can't be
trusted."
8. "Every legal challenge questioning the results,
and every court in this country, that could have been made was
made and was rejected, often rejected by Republican appointed
judges, including judges appointed by the former president
himself."
9. "Even before the first ballot was cast, the former president
was preemptively sowing doubt about the election results."
10. "He's not just a former president...."
11. "He's a defeated former president."
12. "The former president failed to make his case."
13. "The former president and his supporters have never been
able to explain how they accept as accurate the other
election results that took place on November 3rd."
14. "The former president didn't lose those races, he just
lost the one that was his own."
15. "The third big lie being told by a former president
and his supporters, that the mob who sought to impose their
will through violence are the nation's two patriots."
16. "The former president who lies about this election and the
mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from
the core American values."
Read more about what Biden said here.
Biden on why he didn't mention Trump by name: "I did not want to
turn it into a contemporary political battle"
President
Biden reflected on the moment following his remarks in Statuary Hall, telling reporters
in the Capitol that he did not name former President Trump during his address
because he did “not want to turn it into a contemporary political battle.”
“Look, I
think we just have to face the facts of what happened. Draw a clear picture for
the American people. It’s not about me. It’s not about the vice president. It
really isn’t, that’s the thing that bothers me most about sort of attitude that
seems to be emerging to some degree in American politics,” he said when asked
why he didn’t call out Trump directly by name.
He
continued, “It’s not about me, it’s not about whether I’m President or she’s
vice president. It’s about the system and somebody who decides to put himself
above everything. And so – but I did not want to turn it into a contemporary
political battle between me and the President. It’s way beyond that.”
While Biden
did not mention Trump by name, Biden did make reference
to "the former president" 16 times in his speech, including lines
accusing him of "losing," "failing" and "lying."
Biden
dismissed a question that his remarks could divide more than heal.
“The way you
have to heal, you have to recognize the extent of the wound. This is serious
stuff… You’ve gotta face it. That’s what great
nations do, they face the truth, deal with it, and move on,” he said.
Biden repeatedly condemned Trump's role in the Capitol riot — but he
didn't once mention him by name
While
President Biden repeatedly mentioned former President Trump's actions on Jan. 6,
2021, and the days leading up to the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, he
never called him by his name.
In a speech
at the US Capitol marking the anniversary of the riot, Biden referenced referenced "the former President," but did not
say "Trump."
"Here's
the truth: A former President of the United States of America has
created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's
done so because he values power over principle. Because he sees his
own interest as more important than his country's interest,
and America's interest. And because his bruised ego matters more
to him than our democracy or our Constitution," Biden said at one
point.
He also
detailed exactly what Trump did during the insurrection without calling him out
by name.
Biden described
how a "former president" sat in "the private dining room
off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television
and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk,
and the nation's Capitol under siege."
ATTACHMENT TWO – Also From NPR
VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS CALLS ON THE SENATE
TO PROTECT VOTING RIGHTS
By Rachel Treisman,
Lisa Lambert
Vice President Harris marked the
anniversary of Jan. 6 by noting both the strength and fragility of American democracy
and by calling on lawmakers to pass voting rights legislation to protect it.
Harris compared the attack on the Capitol
to other infamous events like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 and described the
lawlessness, violence and chaos as "what our nation would look like if the
forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful."
She urged lawmakers and constituents
alike to stand up for democracy.
“Let’s be clear: We must pass the voting
rights bills now before the Senate," she says. "But we, the American
people, must also do something more. We cannot sit on the sidelines. We must
unite in defense of our democracy.”
The Freedom to Vote Act and the John
Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are intended to ensure access to voting in
all states and to limit discrimination.
Harris will travel with President Biden
next week to Atlanta to press for the legislation. As president of the Senate,
she could cast a tiebreaking vote in the evenly divided chamber, but the bill
may never reach that point as fellow Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is resisting
changing the filibuster so that the two bills could pass along party lines.
She said that when young people ask her
about the events of that day, she tells them that Jan. 6 reflects "the
dual nature of democracy." On the one hand, she said, it means rule of
law, equal treatment for everyone, free and fair elections and empowering the
people. On the other hand, it is at risk of faltering without protection.
“The violent assault that took place here — the very fact of how close we came to an election overturned — that reflects the fragility of democracy," she said. "Yet, the resolve I saw in our elected leaders when I returned to the Senate chamber that night, their resolve not to yield, but to certify the election, their loyalty, not to party or person but to the Constitution of the United States, that reflects its strength.“