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Thursday, January 7, 2021 – What.The.F**k.Was.That?! That’s a post I saw in reference to yesterday’s extraordinary events when Trump egged his supporters on to literally trash the Capitol building as both houses were meeting to certify the election results in favor of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It was the most insane thing I had ever seen in US politics and I’m sixty as of last December 21 so I’ve seen Watergate, Iran-Contra, the End of the Cold War, 9/11, and the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. Not since 9/11 has the country been so completely rattled. I’m working on my syllabus during the AM yesterday, aware the certification was going to happen, also fully aware that Trump supporters were planning to rally in DC. I’d been reading about their plans to converge on the capital to support Trump and to disrupt the certification process because of his egregious lies about having won the election. Talk about living in an alternative reality! I’d also read articles that quoted the DC law enforcement saying they were ready for the protests. And R texted that AM that DC stores were once again boarding up in anticipation of riots and violence. But I wasn’t too worried as the certification was a foregone conclusion, even with the Dirty Dozen senators planning to challenge various state certifications, along with their cowardly, traitorous allies in the House. The Dems had the votes in both houses to override those ridiculous objections (even before the 2 Dems won the run-off elections in Georgia – YAY!!). And the military (ie: all former defense secretaries) had indicated last week they would not get involved, said the time to question the election was passed, and expected a peaceful transition of power to Biden. Big business had also come out in support of the election results and an orderly transition. And I read an article from church and BLM leaders the day before who had decided not to come out in force to confront the protesters out of fear of more violence and it getting out of hand. So I wasn’t too worried about the certification process or the protests. I figured the Trump crazies would spend the day blowing off steam, while the extremists among them like the Proud Boys would pick fights with unlucky passer-byers at night as is their MO. But collectively they wouldn’t be able to overturn what had been a fair and equitable election that the major institutions of the country supported, that is, the will of the people. I was right that they couldn’t stop it, but they sure did try and what a disaster! B. had the CNN news coverage of the rally and the certification on his Ipad and I just happened to walk into the study to ask him something around 2PM when all hell started breaking loose at the Capital. After that we were glued to our TV sets surfing from channel to channel, as were all our friends as we were all texting back and forth frantically shocked and appalled at what we were seeing. The Capital building was under attack by a rampaging mob of Trump supporters who broke through the barriers around the building, swarmed up the steps on all sides like the insects, broke through doors and windows and rampaged their way to the very doors of the Senate and House chambers. There congressional members were suddenly sheltering in place, lying on floors, cowering behind chairs, praying, crying, told to put on gas masks and finally ushered out the safety by armed guards while other guards tried to keep the crazies at bay until they had been evacuated. The Trump assholes then proceeded to wander all around the chambers smashing things, broke into congressional offices – one ass even decided to sit in Pelosi’s chair and leave her a nasty note -- and generally vandalized the place! The outrage on every channel which was covering all this was palpable. Sedition, an attempted coup, insurrection – just about every channel, even Fox News, was using language like that because they were as shocked and appalled as we were. Members of the Senate and House that could be reached by phone were clearly rattled, having been cleared out to an “unknown location” for their safety. And even members of the Republican party were outraged that the president had encouraged all this just to stay in power after an election he so clearly lost. Speaker after speaker on all the networks blamed him regardless of their party affiliation and called for something to be done – not just to stop the protestors but to remove him from office before the inauguration in 14 days for his traitorous acts. And talk of restarting impeachment articles or invoking the 25th so his cabinet could remove him from office before January 20th began to circulate before the evening was over. And where the hell were the police? That was what we all kept asking and texting one another. We watched in horror for almost 2 hours before a sizeable police presence began to materialize, and even then they stood mainly on the sidelines, waiting until dusk to gently move the rioters back. Comparisons between the police's egregious treatment of BLM protesters and their gentle treatment of Trump protesters were circulating within an hour on social media. The contrast was stark – heavily militarized police presence over the Summer for BLM but Trump supporters get calmly and kindly escorted down the f**king steps. Just writing about it is making me outraged all over again! And why hadn’t there been more police and law enforcement to begin with? Everyone – us, texting and FBing with friends, every talking-head on the TV -- was asking that. I mean these were the same idiots who earlier in 2020 had attacked the Wisconsin state house and tried to kidnap the Michigan Governor! So why wouldn’t the police know by now just how dangerous some of these guys could be when whipped into a frenzy by their pig-God leader. And many of his supporters had been pretty clear in all the newspaper accounts I read that they were planning to actively disrupt the proceedings so where was the police presence? It came out during this time that it was Pence, not Trump, who finally called out the National Guard – but I mean WTF again?? Where was Trump during all this? He made a brief video post at one point saying he loved the rioters, it was time to go home, but then he immediately repeated the falsehood that the election was rigged and he was really the winner. Twitter unilaterally decided to suspend his account for 12 hours to prevent him from inciting them any further violence so we have no idea what was going on in the White House or in his senile head during this time. A reporter on CNN with good connections to the White House staff was told “he’s really lost it.” But then how could Pence even legally take charge and call in the National Guard? Who the hell was in charge at that point? I suspect it was Pence, McConnell and Pelosi (bless her!!) in consultation with one another and other congressional leaders in whatever respective bunkers they’d been herded that made the call to lead without him. Pence had already said the week earlier that he was going to uphold the constitution and the election certification, and of course the first thing Trump and his followers did was label him a traitor and call for his head on a stick. McConnell also turned against the President last week, telling the Senate Republicans to stop all the nonsense and abide by their oath to the Constitution. So I suspect they were finally on the same page with Dems that the orange asshole had FINALLY gone too far (you think?!), was totally out of control and had to be stopped. Given much of the military leadership probably already knew how crazy Trump is, I suspect they were more than happy to listen to Pence for a change. As J said, though, what about the frigging nuclear codes? But even when the police and national guard did show up, it was infuriating to watch them f**king gently usher those assholes down the Capital steps and away from the building. Most peaceful protests are met with egregious violence -- the George Floyd protests during the Summer were met with a heavy militarized presence, rubber bullets and batons. Yet in this instance, a bunch of crazed white people in Trump hats carrying confederate flags not only were allowed to take over the Capital and lounge like idiots in the Senate President’s chair, but they were gently helped out and pushed back by the police that finally did show up. I’ve since heard that many of the police were on the side of the seditionists, taking selfies with them and so on. I hope they all lose their damn jobs the racist f**ks! But I do take some satisfaction in knowing that our institutions held in the end – Congressional leaders were doubly committed to getting back into the chambers that night in order to certify the election. By 8PM the building had been secured and the proceedings began, which we watched on CNN, in between watching the commentary outrage on various stations about what had just happened. Many of the Dirty Dozen were mollified now that they had been terrorized by Trump’s goons and thugs themselves. I mean the police even found a pipe-bomb at the RNC headquarters (also the DNC but you’d expect that from these right-wing racist goons), so Republicans are being targeted quite directly by these loons now. That means civil war is breaking out among the Republicans now, between the loons and the sane, which is just fine as far as I am concerned. There was also a lot of pressure that night from their own party leaders to stop f**king around and support the goddamn constitution! Some still engaged in sedition, however, like Joshua Hawley, Ted Cruz and a bunch of House members who tried to challenge the results from particular states, like Georgia and Pennsylvania. Not even their own states mind you, but ones where they were convinced Trump should have won even though in reality he didn’t. In all those cases, election officials followed the letter of the law, there were no irregularities and court after court after court (most of them with Republican appointed justices) confirmed that no, no, no – there was absolutely no evidence of electoral tampering. But these jerks would disenfranchise vast swarths of American voters just to stay in power. They are the worst kind of human beings as are their rabid followers and supporters. Thankfully they did not have the votes to actually change anything so the certification of Biden/Harris’ election was completed at 3:45AM! YAY!! Sunday, 1/10/2021 – The fall-out from last week’s riot has been tremendous, more than I had ever hoped for (as someone who has known what a terrible choice Trump was from the beginning)! Twitter suspended Trump’s account indefinitely, other social media platforms have followed suit – also shutting down sites for things like “Hang Mike Pence” because he is now seen as the ultimate traitor to Trump, their pig-God. Trump’s cabinet has been hemorrhaging members (though I suspect its not because they suddenly saw the light but to avoid having to invoke and participate in the 25th). Dems and some Republicans are looking to introduce Articles of Impeachment this coming week (yes please!). The rioters are being tracked down and arrested because most of them were foolish enough to post everything they were doing on social media (and then tried to take it all down the next day when they realized how much trouble they were in!). The Chief of the Capital Police has already resigned, more to come I’m sure, including some purging of Trump loyalists in the military and throughout different areas of the federal government. The seditionists in Congress have also become pariahs being punished in various ways– that f**king Nazi Josh Hawley has lost book deals, political mentors and friends and hopefully Ted Cruz is next. Large corporations have put moratoriums on their campaign contributions, sometimes to both parties but most have focused on the seditionists. And while I thought of it as a riot that got stoked up by Trump’s rhetoric and out of hand due to mob mentality (so tended to think the term “coup” was hyperbole), there is increasing evidence that some of the rioters really did intend to take members of congress hostage, complete with zip ties and nooses! Of course, not everyone who participated in the storming of the Capital building intended that, but the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have found evidence of a real plot among some segment of the rioters. Combine that with the slow response of the military, and increasing evidence that Trump supporters within their ranks may have purposefully slowed that response, and calling it an attempt coup may not be hyperbole after all. That is scary as hell! But it is really gratifying to see these guys on the run after 5 years -- I count the campaign year leading up to Trump’s win as part of their terror campaign for anyone who was tuned in and bothering to notice what a demagogue Trump is. Now much of the media is all like, “oh, how could this happen?” and “how outrageous that they say these things” and I think, where the f**k was your outrage 5 years ago when journalists where being threatened with hanging at all of Trump’s rallies? It’s not like any of these idiots ever tried to hide their sedition and hatred for Democracy, people of color, Libtards and anyone who didn’t think exactly the way they did. They’ve also been talking sedition since day 1 so, while it’s great to finally see them get what they deserve, it also feels pretty late in the game to grow a conscience. Still it feels good to be so clearly on the right side of history and to have nothing to apologize for in that regard. I keep thinking back to the conversation I had with A down at the pond in 2016, when he asserted that if Hilary won our democracy would be in big trouble. I replied that I thought the opposite was the case, that it was Trump’s election that would threaten our democracy. And then all the FB conversations with Trump supporters after the election who kept saying how great it was going to be, how he was going to fix everything, that we just had to wait and see – soooo frustrating to deal when it was so obviously not true. For us Dems, it was so clear that he was an evil, evil man who didn’t deserve the public trust, was a threat to our democracy and nation and should never have been in office. It’s nice to be so clearly vindicated on that score – he is now being referred to in all quarters as the worst President in American history and I’m pretty sure that is going to stick. Sadly he still has lots of clueless supporters and the RNC is still officially backing him. Reading about his supporters in detail often makes me very angry – the stupid, nasty, racists ones in it for the attention, right-wing fame and violence. But sometimes it makes me sad. Many of them are seem like decent people who desperately wanted a social network and found it in these right-wing social media forums. For these people, it was meant to be a fun gathering of like-minded friends, not an attempted coup, but they are now tarnished by the actions of others. I read about a Republican consultant who held a focus group with Trump supporters the day after the riots and he said he was shocked. Normally they are nice to one another but they were now split into three factions – those who think he lost the election and needs to move one, those who think he won the election but needs to move on, and those who think he won and should continue to fight. He said he had never seen such nasty disagreement among Republicans before which does not bode well for party unity. Again its not the dems who did that to them – the Republicans have only themselves to blame for this. Monday, January 11, 2021 -- In more personal news, K. is closing in on an apartment in NYC, in Morningside Heights near the University. She went down twice last week and we submitted all the paperwork for her applications (including my info as her guarantor). Classes start again for her tomorrow (online) but I expect if all the paperwork goes through then we will be moving her down to NYC in the next two weeks. That’s left me sad and a bit rattled. At least living here I can be sure she is relatively safe from exposure to COVID and safe in general. I can’t keep her safe once she is in the city and her chances of being exposed to the virus will increase. Meanwhile the numbers continue to go up – our positivity rate is fluctuating between 6 and 9, New York’s is similar (though NYC may be higher) – so I’m scared to go out and worried about her exposure once she moves. Those are worse than during the summer but much better than many other states – as of today Idaho is 56.6! LA is currently a health crisis mess. And roll-out of the vaccine has been very slow. CT is one of the better states to be on track for administering it, other states are a mess. Hopefully Biden can get this on track once in office since he likes to, you know, actually lead and run the government! But its scary to think of moving her to a place where exposure to more people, including whomever her roommate meets, in inevitable. And what do we do when she wants to come home for a weekend? Dad thinks he will be able to get the vaccine in February given his age and COPD and I’m hoping and praying he will be able to – it will be a huge relief to me once he is vaccinated. Meanwhile I’m hoping we’ll get it sometime late Spring – maybe that is too optimistic and it won’t be available to the general public until July or later but I think I will literally go stir crazy being unable to see Dad or Mom or my friends on a regular basis. We did do a “Gathering of the Firepits” the night before New Year’s Eve, everyone brings their portable firepit and wood, we arrange them in a circle along with our camping chairs and our own food and drink, so we can catch up and play stupid games. It worked really well until it started raining about midnight, right in the middle of our second game of Werewolf, and I was knocked out for two days after it due to the cold. I’m very bundled up and warm during the evening but the cold just takes a toll on me and I end up being super fatigued afterwards. I so miss the casualness of dropping by to see someone in the warm over a hot cup of coffee, or going shopping or out to eat and the movies. And traveling was always what I had to look forward to before Covid. Now ISA Las Vegas is online and I never leave the house because there is no where to go and its so cold outside. No wonder I’m fatigued all the time and sleeping crazy long hours! FYI-- a friend texted yesterday to say that her husband had a positive case of Covid. No details on how he contracted it, just that his symptoms are mild and they were trying to isolate from one another in their house. Wow, she is someone with underlying conditions so not good at all.