Day 304…
It’s cold this morning. Clear and bright, but very cold.
Our building was built in 1941, so when it is this cold and breezy, the cold finds its way in. Especially around the air conditioners, there are tiny little frigid drafts that creep into our rooms like icy tendrils. For me, it’s perfect. I am more than happy to curl up in a couple of layers. For Michael… I think he’d like it warmer.
Our couch is covered in leather which means that it’s cold when you first sit on it. After a while, though, it picks up the heat from your body and warms up. The cat, if he’s not already sleeping on one of us, keeps his eye on our comings and goings from in front of the TV. If one of us gets up, he knows that we are going to leave a warm spot behind us, so he’ll jump up and curl up into it as soon as he can.
Christmas has all been packed up. After we took the tree down to the basement and out into the back courtyard, we vacuumed and dusted so that now the living room is clean and orderly. Almost too much so.
Our living room isn’t quite as cozy as it was with the lit and decorated Christmas tree at its center. Plugging in the lights on the tree is no longer part of my early morning routine although the impulse to do it is still there.
More and more video that was shot inside the Capitol during the coup attempt is coming to light. It’s graphically horrific.
While the footage we all saw on the day seemed to focus on the lunatic fringe of the mob who were posing and grandstanding, the video we are all seeing now shows the underlying core group of people carrying weapons who seem focused and intent on doing some real damage. There are pictures and footage of armed rioters, in full body armor, with supplies of zip tie restraints hanging from their belts, breaking down doors as they hunt for legislators and confront law enforcement.
It has now come to light that their plan was to detain the Vice President, try him and hang him. Where once he might have been admired by these agitators, he is now reviled by them for not overthrowing the election results.
None of their intent was a secret. Calls to storm the Capitol were rife throughout social media prior to January 6th.
The Anti-Defamation League published a dire warning on January 4th that extremists were mobilizing. They reported that organizers from events such as “Stop the Steal/Wild Protest” had applied for four different permits to rally and that a fifth one called, “Operation Occupy the Capitol” was also being planned.
They published some of the chatter that they had found on extremist platforms.
“Please, I dare them (Congress) to defy the constitution while millions of patriots are anxiously waiting to hang them and gun them down in the streets like the tyrants they are.”
“My truck is lifted and I have a plow on it right now. What do you need Mr. President?”
Nobody seems to have paid any attention to these warnings.
There are now calls being made by these same extremists to their supporters to gather in Washington D.C. on January 17th. And then again on the 20th for the inauguration.
On a platform called Parler, one user posted, “Many of Us will return on January 19, 2021, carrying Our weapons, in support of Our nation's resolve, towhich the world will never forget!!! We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match.”
On another platform, that Facebook won’t let me name, someone posted, “Round 2 on January 20th. This time no mercy. I don’t even care about keeping Trump in power. I care about war.”
This mob is turning against everyone who isn’t fully onboard. They’ve already labeled the Vice-President a traitor and yesterday, at Reagan airport, a group of them verbally accosted Republican Senator Lindsay Graham.
“Lindsey Graham, you are a traitor to the country, You know it was rigged! … You garbage human being…It’s gonna be like this forever, wherever you go for the rest of your life,”
They’re eating their own.
Let’s hope that somebody is listening to all of this and taking it seriously this time.
A State Department official tweeted yesterday that the President was “entirely unfit to remain in office.” This morning, the President fired him.
Twitter, yesterday, suspended the President’s account indefinitely.
Congress seems to be moving forward with impeachment proceedings against him. In response, the White House issued a statement yesterday that said in part, “A politically motivated impeachment against a President with 12 days remaining in his term will only serve to further divide our great country.” That hardly seems possible.
All of this mayhem has pushed the global pandemic right off of the front page.
The United States is just about to clock in at 22 million cases. We are now averaging nearly 250 thousand new cases a day. That number is well over three times greater than any weekly average we saw during the summer peak.
California has sent 88 refrigerated trucks to hospitals in various counties to act as temporary morgues. In Los Angeles county, on average, somebody is dying from COVID-19 every eight minutes.
On Thursday over 4,000 people in the US died from COVID-19. In a single day. It was a new record. That’s more people dead than died during all of 9/11 and its aftermath and we really didn’t notice. It will likely happen all over again today.
The CDC is warning that the mob attack on the US Capitol will likely be a super-spreader event. No masks, no distancing and they were indoors. In the last few days the participants have dispersed back to their homes all over the country.
There is no sign of these numbers going down at all. They are still heading up.
CNN only occasionally broadcasts the virus totals these days as they concentrate on the aftermath of the attempted coup. All of that virus death is old news and not nearly as exciting as the grinning moron who stole Speaker Pelosi’s podium getting arrested in Florida.
This has been some week.
This weekend Congress is going to be figuring out how to move forward with their impeachment plans. The President is going to be figuring out how to communicate with his base. His base is going to be figuring out how to proceed.Federal investigators are going to be figuring out how to prosecute the insurrectionists. Republican legislators are going to be trying to figure out how they are going to save their own asses.
For the moment, we have a short break while everyone catches their breath so that they can launch into next week. Next week should be a doozy.
Michael is cooking breakfast. The smell that is wafting through the apartment is, frankly, every bit as good as Christmas. For the moment, that is what I am going to concentrate on.
Now that the holidays have passed, many of the people who came into town have left.
Museums are blissfully uncrowded.
There is a wonderful exhibit at the Whitney on Mexican muralists and their effect on American and European artists.
Many of those artists were inspired by the events surrounding the Mexican revolution. They were commissioned by the new government to glorify its history on buildings throughout Mexico City. As those commissions began to dry up, artists like Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo, among many others, started coming north into the US to work. In doing so, they, in turn, inspired a whole generation of American painters and sculptors and muralists into a deeper social consciousness.
There is likely to be a tsunami of art inspired by everything that is unfolding around us. We have already seen the beginnings of it.
Many of the spectacular painted panels that covered buildings during the Black Lives Matter protested have already been claimed by museums. Years from now, when they are exhibited, we will look upon them and remember the intense passion behind their creation.
Some of the photographs from the insurrection on Wednesday have already become iconic. A war photographer named Ron Haviv embedded himself in with the mob and shot some stunning images. I am sure that there will be more.
For today, though, I am going to try and find something somewhat less current to take in.
I need to catch my breath, too.
First, though, breakfast.
Well this is about the most upsetting post to date... well maybe not the most but certainly terrifying. Let's hope that they just move the inauguration to Wilmington and don't tell anyone!
I started viewing the French Village and just finished Season 1. Not sure what more horrific- then or now! ( By the way - need to "pay" MHz to continue watching- did you guys too? ) It's excellent but Im questioning if this is the best time to be watching it.
❤️God is in the breath...enjoy your breakfast and this day, as I enjoyed reading this post. Stunning as always