"Six hours of paralysis: Inside Trump’s failure to act after a mob stormed the Capitol"

The story, below, is by Washington Post reporters Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, and Philip Rucker.  It appeared on the newspaper's website Monday night.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mob-failure/2021/01/11/36a46e2e-542e-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html 

The report includes this:  

(A)s senators and House members trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who — safely ensconced in the West Wing — was too busy watching fiery TV images of the crisis unfolding around them to act or even bother to hear their pleas.

From the story:

“It took him awhile to appreciate the gravity of the situation,” [Senator Lindsey] Graham said in an interview. “The president saw these people as allies in his journey and sympathetic to the idea that the election was stolen.”

The reporters write:

The man who vowed to be a president of law and order failed to enforce the law or restore order. The man who has always seen himself as the protector of uniformed police sat idly by as Capitol Police officers were outnumbered, outmaneuvered, trampled on — and in one case, killed. And the man who had long craved the power of the presidency abdicated many of the responsibilities of the commander in chief, even having to be prodded into belatedly calling up reinforcements from the National Guard.

One of the writers of the story, Mr. Rucker, along with Post reporter Carol Leonnig, wrote the excellent book A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America (Penguin Press, January, 2020).

https://www.amazon.com/Very-Stable-Genius-Testing-America/dp/1984877496/

From columnist George Will: "Trump, Hawley and Cruz will each wear the scarlet ‘S’ of a seditionist"

The column by Mr. Will is from The Washington Post.  It appeared on the Post's website Wednesday evening.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-hawley-and-cruz-will-each-wear-the-scarlet-s-of-a-seditionist/2021/01/06/65b0ad1a-506c-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html

Resignation

President Trump is a deeply disturbed and uniquely dangerous man.

Conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike have called for him to resign, following the assault on the Capitol.  Those suggesting resignation include the editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal.  President Trump should take this advice.

From the Editorial Board of The Washington Post

The editorial is titled: "The danger is growing that Trump’s lies about the election will lead to violence."

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-danger-is-growing-that-trumps-lies-about-the-election-will-lead-to-violence/2020/12/09/cf71d6f0-3a61-11eb-9276-ae0ca72729be_story.html

Am going to be saving this paper

 

Joe Biden

Here are two very nice commercials from the Joe Biden campaign.

The first is called "Hometown," and is narrated by Bruce Springsteen.  It first aired on television this past weekend, and Mr. Springsteen's "My Hometown" is heard throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftGp3UTTO4E

The second commercial first aired a couple of weeks ago, and is titled "Go From There."  The narrator is the actor Sam Elliott.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Xufahbaq4

The Election

This post has been edited,  to include additional information from a New York Times story which had been cited.

 

Am hoping for the sea-change, via the election:  that the country will have voted for calm, steady, strong, caring, wise leadership. 

One hopes, in short, that the Trump ride will soon be over:  that we'll be done with the President's endless divisiveness, his endless lies, his cruelties, the racial dog whistles, the conspiracy theories, the contempt, the self-pity, the self-glorification. And, of course, there have been his stunning failures regarding COVID--and what has become his disinterest in, dismissal of, minimizing of (and his preference for falsehoods about) the virus.

In a July 19th New York Times story, David Carney, an advisor to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, said this, of Mr. Trump and the pandemic: "The president got bored with it."   

Some governors, the article reported, "have sought out partners in the administration other than the president, including Vice President Mike Pence, who, despite echoing Mr. Trump in public, is seen by [such governors] as far more attentive to the continuing disaster."  Mr. Carney, the Times story said, "noted that [Governor] Abbott, a Republican, directs his [COVID-related] requests to Mr. Pence, with whom he speaks two to three times a week."

The President has said, many times, that the country is "rounding the corner," concerning the pandemic. On October 23rd, he added one word to the phrase: "We're rounding the corner beautifully."  On that day, in the U.S., there were over 900 deaths, due to the virus.  There were also more than 83,000 new COVID cases that day--a record, at the time, which has since been surpassed.

As of today, there have been more than 9 1/4 million COVID cases in the U.S.--and more than 231,000 deaths. A death count of a quarter of a million is in sight.