President-elect Joe Biden is avoiding taking a firm position on removing President Trump from office ahead after last week's Capitol riot, as House Democrats signaled they would introduce articles of impeachment against him on Monday.
Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening released the final text of their resolution to impeach President Donald Trump, charging him with "incitement of insurrection." The House will vote on the single article of impeachment on Wednesday.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told "Fox & Friends" on Monday that if Democrats want to do something good for the country, then they should focus on what they are going to do for American families as opposed to impeachment.
Congressman Adam Schiff, House Intelligence Committee chair and House Manager during the Trump impeachment trial, joined "CBS This Morning" to discuss the attack on the U.S. Capitol and whether he thinks Congress will impeach President Trump before he leaves office on January 20.
Last Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. Capitol looked really, really bad as it was happening. Over the weekend, as more videos and information came out, it looked worse and worse. From video of the Trump-supporting terrorists beating a police officer with flag poles and crushing an officer in a door to the authorities’ refusal to hold a briefing to tell the nation what they know about what happened, how many people are injured, and what they’re doing to prevent this from happening again, the assault on the Capitol increasingly looks like an organized and serious coup attempt with some level of complicity in Congress and at the Pentagon. That’s one reason it’s so important for the House to impeach Donald Trump now, first, right away—because there’s good reason to believe other shoes are going to drop. When that happens, Democrats need to be ready to move.
House Democrats are planning to introduce an article of impeachment Monday morning: “incitement of insurrection.” That’s good—but it would have been better to do it over the weekend, in line with the urgency of the moment. We know now how close we came to members of Congress being publicly beaten to death by a mob whipped up by Trump. Even allowing for the trauma members of Congress are dealing with, that’s not a “take a weekend off” situation.
Wednesday we saw pictures of bros milling around giving thumbs up and grinning as they put their feet on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office or carried away a lectern. Since then, we’ve seen more evidence of how many were wearing tactical gear and moving in coordinated ways, of members of hate groups in the Capitol, of preparation for serious violence.
“That was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us,” a Black officer who has been in the Capitol Police for more than a decade told Buzzfeed. “They had radios, we found them, they had two-way communicators and earpieces. They had bear spray. They had flash bangs ... They were prepared. They strategically put two IEDs, pipe bombs, in two different locations. These guys were military trained. A lot of them were former military.”
Every detail that emerges shows how serious this was, and how seriously the government should be taking it. That is not what’s happening, with Trump-appointed Pentagon officials giving the coup a name that actively downplays it and—it cannot be emphasized enough—law enforcement not having given one briefing of the sort that would be absolutely standard after any significant event.
One Republican member of Congress who did condemn the coup attempt claimed some of his Republican colleagues voted to overturn the election results out of fear for themselves and their families. “One of the saddest things is I had colleagues who, when it came time to recognize reality and vote to certify Arizona and Pennsylvania in the Electoral College, they knew in their heart of hearts that they should've voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger,” Rep. Peter Meijer said.
But even if that’s true, it’s a reason to act firmly now, before things get worse. They won’t have less to fear if they allow Trump’s insurrection to continue growing.
The weekend also brought news of yet another attempt by Trump to coerce an official into overturning Georgia's election results. But one amazing thing about this weekend was that, following Trump’s permanent Twitter suspension on Friday night, we didn’t get a blow by blow of Trump’s moods and whims all weekend. It’s kind of weird and disorienting, to be honest, but also freeing and wonderful.
Just as Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner after watching the bombing of Fort McHenry, so too did America's #1 political musical parodist put quill to parchment as he watched the Republican gooberstapo revolt at the Capitol. With a little more cowbell, it could be our new national anthem until Hair Twitler flees to Russia...
Percent of registered voters polled by YouGov who say the terrorist invasion of the U.S. Capitol was wrong (with 45% of Republicans saying it was fine): 71%
Average number of thunderstorms, floods, and tornadoes, respectively, in the U.S. every year: 10,000 / 5,000 / 1,300
Percent of presidentially-declared disasters for which weather events are responsible: 90%
Rank of San Francisco, Portland OR, and Washington DC among the best cities for a carless lifestyle, according to data crunched by Lawnstarter: #1, #2, #3
Rank of Shreveport LA, Montgomery AL, and Little Rock AR among worst cities for a carless lifestyle: #1, #2, #3
CHEERS to your morning reality check. Let's zoom out and see if World War Trump has destroyed the planet yet:
Hey, look at that! Still in one piece. Good! Then again—[Looks at watch]—it's early.
CHEERS to a historic two-fer. Democrats in the House could introduce an article of impeachment today against President Donald J. Trump. But instead of nailing him for trying to steal an election by extorting "a favor, though" from Ukraine, today the charge is—[checks notes]—trying to steal an election by inciting an insurrection among his mentally-deranged cult at the U.S. Capitol who, among other things, wanted to find and hang his own vice president:
There is more backing within the House Democratic caucus for impeaching Trump now than there was in 2019 when Trump was first impeached, [Speaker] Pelosi said, according to multiple sources on the call. "The President chose to be an insurrectionist," Pelosi said, according to one source said. "How we go forward is a subject for this caucus." […]
Saddle up, Congressman Schiff. It’s go time. Again.
As Pelosi and her leadership team ran through their options Thursday night, the overwhelming sentiment was that impeachment was the way forward, according to multiple sources.
Regardless of what the Senate does, Trump will be the first president in our 245-year history to be such a human cesspool of corruption and unrepentance that he had to be impeached twice by the House. And he never even broke a sweat.
CHEERS to the not-so-artful dodger. Happy 258th birthday to Alexander Hamilton. He was one of our country's youngest Founding Fathers, but he wasn't very good at avoiding controversy (adultery, skullduggery in the 1800 election) or ye olde musket ball. And here's something for the pootie diaries:
People today still name their tomcats after Alexander Hamilton in deference to his infamous many extramarital affairs. Martha Washington was the first as she named her large carousing tomcat 'Hamilton.'
— Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (@stem_feed) January 6, 2021
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to the worst tote board in the world. Insurrection or no insurrection, the coronavirus pandemic rages on. And with President Trump distracted by the worst crisis in world history—the loss of his Twitter account—the virus is in complete control at the moment. Worldwide there are now 90 millioncases—over 20 percent of them in the U.S. Here are this week's numbers for the C&J historical record, courtesy of the most depressing tote board in the world, as our death toll now roughly equals the population of America’s 53rd-largest city Cleveland, Ohio:
6 months ago: 3.4 million confirmed cases. 138,000 deaths.
3 months ago: 8 million confirmed cases. 219,000 deaths
President Biden’s covid task force leaps into action in 9 days.
1 month ago: 17 million confirmed cases. 305,000 deaths
This morning: 23 million confirmed cases. 382,000 deaths
As for that super-easy-to-spread variant of Covid-19, The New York Times says it's absolutely here and it's gonna kill all the grandmas, but NBC News says no, no, no, not so fast, that's not true, but the New York Times is all like, yuh-huh, we got that directly from Dr. Deborah Birx, but NBC News says you dingleberries are so dopey, the CDC says it's not true and what the hell are you doing listening to anything that freaking Deborah Birx has to say, after she got caught nodding her head when Donald Freaking Trump said people might consider injecting bleach "almost like a cleaning." So glad we cleared that up.
CHEERS to clearing the air....and the lungs. Speaking of health menaces, 57 years ago today, in 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to your health. (This came as quite a shock to some of tobacco's most fervent supporters, like doctors and Ronald Reagan.) The report had quite the impact:
The landmark Surgeon General's report on smoking and health stimulated a greatly increased concern about tobacco on the part of the American public and government policymakers and led to a broad-based anti-smoking campaign. …
Surgeon general Luther Terry with his landmark report.
The report was also responsible for the passage of the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, which, among other things, mandated the familiar Surgeon General's health warnings on cigarette packages.
If you're in the process of quitting or thinking of quitting, go for it. Your lungs and your bank account will thank you.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 11, 2011 (aka 1/11/11)
JEERS to a really bad weekend. First, the big picture: A federal judge, a little kid, and four others were killed Saturday afternoon and a dozen were wounded when a lily-white—wild guess here—"loner" with a paranoia fetish tried to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was at one point falsely declared dead by the media. Doctors are cautiously optimistic that Giffords will pull through, although the extent of the brain damage is far from known. It might not be terribly out of line for me to point out the irony of a massacre taking place in front of a sign that says "Safeway." But then again it probably is.
1/11/21 Update:
.@GabbyGiffords — Your perseverance and immeasurable courage continue to inspire me and millions of others. I pledge to continue to work with you — and with survivors, families, and advocates across the country — to defeat the NRA and end our epidemic of gun violence. https://t.co/zN5J5YjXUM
CHEERS to bitchy jokesters. January 10, 1982 was a dark day for my little (pop. 15,000) birth hamlet of Mount Vernon, Ohio. Our most famous son, Paul "Center Square" Lynde, was found dead of a heart attack at 55—the age I turned two years ago, so I can officially tell you that’s young—in his Beverly Hills home, and our town just froze for the day (in fairness, it was the middle of January). It’s no longer a secret that most of the jokes Lynde got credit for on Hollywood Squares were created by professional writers with a real knack for double entendres. But Paul’s campy gift for timing elevated them to comedy hall-of-fame material:
Peter Marshall: Paul, the state flag of Alabama is all white with one very distinctive feature. What is it?
Paul Lynde: Eye holes.
Lynde as an imperial officer in a Star Wars sketch during a Donny & Marie special.
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Peter Marshall: Paul, in what famous book will you read about a talking ass who wonders why it's being beaten?
Paul Lynde:The Joy of Sex.
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Peter Marshall: Will a newborn baby learn anything by the time he's 5 days old?
Paul Lynde: Yes, we should avoid each other when we're drinking.
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Peter Marshall: According to the French Chef, Julia Child, how much is a pinch?
Paul Lynde: Just enough to turn her on.
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Peter Marshall: Paul, Poe’s The Raven said, “Nevermore.” What did Gilbert and Sullivan’s Dickie Bird say?
Paul Lynde: "Let’s not wallow in Watergate."
His lasting legacy: Hollywood Squares and Bewitched.
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Peter Marshall: In the The Wizard of Oz, the lion wanted courage and the tin man wanted a heart. What did the scarecrow want?
Paul Lynde: He wanted the tin man to notice him.
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And the classic that put him on the map:
Peter Marshall: Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.
You'll find tons of clips and info at the official Lynde fan siteand here. He was an interesting—and frustrating—transitional figure on the LGBT timeline of the 60s and 70s. Even though his lips never said "I'm gay," his demeanor—including as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched—screamed it. But scores of homophobic female fans never figured it out, and their adoring fan mail, including marriage proposals, never stopped filling his mailbox. Peter Marshall famously said, "Paul made the world safe for sissies." And I admit, it's nice not having to lock my door at night.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“So how is the 2021 Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool so far? Pretty OK? No different? Colder?”
