“Sen. Johnson questions Dems’ focus on Jan. 6 Capitol riot amid debate over independent commission”
That’s the headline above an AOL News story on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 that begins,
“At a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., accused his Democratic colleagues of devoting too much attention to dangers posed by domestic terrorism and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
(Read it here.)
Johnson is an outlier, even by Republican standards, and it’s not exaggerating to call him a crank. His rhetoric, by any reasonable standard, is extreme. For example, Wikipedia said (here), “In February 2021, Johnson pushed conspiracy theories about the January 6 storming of the Capitol, at one point blaming Nancy Pelosi.”
But he’s part and parcel of a broad-scale effort by Republicans generally to sweep the January 6 storming of the capital by pro-Trump insurgents under the rug, as if it were no big deal and the nation has other priorities than finding out why it happened, all of which are more pressing (although it’s hard to identify what those priorities are, because Republicans are against everything).
That was a riot by people intent on overthrowing our government, in which dozens of police officers were assaulted and injured, five people died, and members of Congress fled for their lives from rioters carrying hand bindings and erected a gallows outside. Yawn, no big deal. They want to investigate protests against police killings of black people instead (adding force to arguments that the GOP is a party of homicidal racists).
On the same day, May18, GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy made it clear his caucus isn’t going to cooperate with a January 6 commission (read story here). Could anyone be surprised by that? The only surprise is that the Democrats made more concessions than he and his gang expected, catching them flat-footed. As CNN reported (here),
“McCarthy may have been hoping negotiations between Katko and Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, would go nowhere. But the source said Thompson and the Democrats gave more concessions than Republicans had expected.”
There was really no reason to expect otherwise. After all, most of McCarthy’s caucus voted against certifying the election, despite a complete absence of credible evidence the results were in any way affected by fraud, unless you buy the Republican belief that allowing black people to vote if “fraudulent” (see my previous posting on this subject here).
Kevin McCarthy
President Biden meant it when he said he wants to unify the country. So did Lincoln, just not in the way the secessionists had in mind, and Biden shouldn’t kow-tow to the modern-day secessionists, either (it’s pretty clear that’s what they are).
Actually, America is united. There’s Republicans (now indistinguishable from Trumpers), and the rest of us are united against them. As we ought to be.
No, don’t scrap the January 6 inquiry because Republicans don’t want one. Go ahead with it.
And give them another chance to participate. When the subpoenas go out.