The San Francisco Chronicle told me
It’s so obvious what Republicans are doing concerning Jan. 6: they’re blaming anyone and anything they can find, except for the one person who actually caused and incited the Insurrection: Donald Trump.
Never mind that everyone in his right mind knows that this was entirely Trump’s doing. The violence, destruction and death were desired by him. But Republicans are in the cognitively-dissonant place where admitting reality would make their little heads explode. So whose fault was Jan. 6? The Capitol Police’s! Or their leadership’s. Or Pelosi’s. Or the FBI’s. And besides, all those warriors attempting to overthrow the government? They weren’t even Trump supporters! They were Antifa, cleverly disguised as Trump supporters in their MAGA hats and carrying their Confederate flags. How do we know this? Because some thug said so on the Internet.
The first news I get every morning is from the San Francisco Chronicle. The paper edition, if you please. I could get more up-to-date news by switching on the T.V. but I grew up reading newspapers at the breakfast table and I love it. This morning’s Chron tells me that Republicans in Congress are “pushing back” on Pelosi’s plan to establish a 9/11-type commission to study the causes of Jan. 6. It looks like the sticking point is the percentage of Republicans and Democrats who will serve on the commission. Pelosi’s plan would have 7 Democrats on the 11-person body; Republicans want an even split. Before you say, “That sounds reasonable,” consider two things: first, most Republicans continue to claim the election was rigged and that Trump actually won, so why would you want delusional idiots on a high-level commission? Second, these are the same Republicans who played the hardest of hardball during Trump’s four years. Remember Merrick Garland? That stain on the Republican Party should have made it toxic forever; certainly, it was an example of McConnell’s realpolitik philosophy that “Elections have consequences. We won, and we’re going to do it our way.” So, set in this context, why the hell shouldn’t Democrats have more commission members? We won last November, and we can do it our way.
Today’s Chron also has an interesting little story, courtesy of the New York Times, on how Biden is changing language and images in U.S. government publications and websites to more accurately and fairly represent the diversity of America—a diversity the white supremacist “christian” Trump regime tried to bury. A website for the Bureau of Land Management now portrays a river instead of a Trumpian wall of coal. The Interior Department now capitalizes the “T” in “Tribal.” Visitors to the White House website are asked which pronouns they prefer: she/her, he/him or they/them. “It’s all part of a concerted effort…to rebrand the government after four years of President Donald Trump.” As an American, I feel good about that. Trump and his deplorables tried their hardest to steal America away. President Biden is giving us our country back. Words and images do matter.
Then there’s the Chron’s front-page article on the stimulus package that Republicans are resisting because they never like spending a whole bunch of money unless it’s in the form of tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. California stands to benefit enormously from Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. Mainly this would be in the form of money for transit systems, in a state that depends on transit for its very existence. From what I can tell, even Republicans in rural states like Wyoming want their share of the money, but they can’t admit it publicly, because they’re supposed to be fiscal conservatives. So they rant against the stimulus, but privately they’re thankful that the Democrats might use reconciliation to pass it over GOP objections. Isn’t it sad when these Republicans can’t even be honest about their constituents’ own interests? They’re so conflicted over what’s happened with Trump, they’ve turned into human pretzels.
Finally, on the op-ed pages, readers are celebrating the San Francisco School Board’s embarrassing decision to reverse its hated policy of renaming public schools. When the public learned that this secretive, largely unaccountable bureaucracy was planning on nixing names such as Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and [even!] Feinstein because they—the board members—thought those individuals were racists, the public arose in fury. It’s rare for San Franciscans to be united about anything, but in this case, they saw the school board for what it was: a bunch of cancel-culture ideologues who can’t figure out how to reopen the schools, but can waste time with such trivial pursuits. There’s now a major recall effort against some of the board members, and the board also is being sued by the city for not reopening. So, as I said, the board has halted the renaming process—temporarily, they say—to focus “exclusively” on reopening.
Well, the school board saw the handwriting on the wall, and caved. At the very least, that makes them morally superior to national Republicans, who did not see the handwriting on the wall from the last election (including Georgia) and are not caving on anything. They continue to be sycophants to the spider brooding in its hole at Mar-a-Lago. We’ll learn more this weekend when the spider emerges to talk to a conservative audience of idiots, insurrectionists, religious nutbags and racists. But I think we already know what the spider will say: the same old lies.
