Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 14m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Independence holiday events continue at the Cravath Lakefront (church in the park, amusements, a petting zoo).
On this day in 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg ends in a Union victory.
The Wisconsin State Journal, with a moderate editorial board for a progressive Madison, describes leading Republican players of January 6th 2021 bluntly: Pence was a hero. Trump was a villain. Johnson was a stooge. Stooge (literally, one who allows oneself to be used for another’s profit or advantage; a puppet) fits Johnson nicely. The State Journal explains:
Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally declare Trump the winner of the 2020 campaign by throwing out or replacing Electoral College votes from states such as Wisconsin that narrowly favored President Joe Biden. Trump’s lawyers hoped to exploit vague wording in the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The Act requires the vice president to preside over the counting of electoral votes and certify the winner.
Shamefully, U.S. Sen Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, was part of Trump’s plot. Though Johnson initially denied any involvement in an attempt to deliver false Wisconsin electors to Pence on Jan. 6, the House Committee uncovered text messages showing Johnson did try to help.
Pence resisted Trump’s pressure campaign, and Pence’s staff refused to accept a list of bogus electors from Johnson’s staff. Pence followed his oath to the Constitution by certifying Biden’s 305-232 victory in the Electoral College. He wasn’t intimidated by angry mobs chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed the Capitol seeking to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
America can’t risk a similar attack on our democracy in the future. The Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol was nothing short of a coup attempt, with Trump encouraging and then refusing to stop the insurrection. He even told top aides that Pence deserved to be hanged, according to House testimony.
Congress can’t allow such a travesty to repeat. Congress must tighten and clarify the Electoral Count Act of 1887 so it’s perfectly clear that the vice president’s role in certifying presidential winners is ceremonial, not pivotal. As Pence told senators in the early morning of Jan. 7, after rioters were finally cleared from the Senate chambers: “The truth is, there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.”
Pence was a hero. Trump was a villain. Johnson was a stooge. The ongoing House hearings are making that more clear than ever.
Visit the Okavango Delta in 360° | National Geographic:
How about villain, stooge and idiot? He’s the total package!
How RoJo got to where he is today is an enduring mystery. Cognitive decline? Somebody knows something RoJo would rather not have put out in public? Mouth breathing charter resident in the basket of deplorables?
Whatever it is, it has to be serious enuf that he is putting his career, and perhaps his liberty, at serious risk on his present course. Ever since he spent independence day as a guest of Putin five years ago he has been behaving in a way that implies that he had a serious epiphany on that day. What could it have been??
True that — he’s a 3 in 1 package of those three. There is a mystery to it all, but I think we’ll learn the truth about him. Can’t be too soon.