Mitch McConnell says Trump provoked the Capitol riot!

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President Donald Trump helped provoke the swarms of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday…

“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell told the chamber, which two weeks earlier had been evacuated as rioters invaded the building. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”

The GOP leader made the direct link between the Republican president’s rhetoric and the Jan. 6 riot, which left five dead, the day before President-elect Joe Biden was to be sworn in as the 46th president…

McConnell’s remarks also suggested that other leaders bore responsibility for the attack. Critics have called on some lawmakers, especially GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, to resign after they objected to key states’ electoral results.

Gee, do you think our elected officials are ready to stand up all righteous and take responsibility for what they’ve done?

Me, neither.

Among the Insurrectionists

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By Luke Mogelson


Balazs Gardi for The New Yorker

By the end of President Donald Trump’s crusade against American democracy—after a relentless deployment of propaganda, demagoguery, intimidation, and fearmongering aimed at persuading as many Americans as possible to repudiate their country’s foundational principles—a single word sufficed to nudge his most fanatical supporters into open insurrection. Thousands of them had assembled on the Mall, in Washington, D.C., on the morning of January 6th, to hear Trump address them from a stage outside the White House. From where I stood, at the foot of the Washington Monument, you had to strain to see his image on a jumbotron that had been set up on Constitution Avenue. His voice, however, projected clearly through powerful speakers as he rehashed the debunked allegations of massive fraud which he’d been propagating for months. Then he summarized the supposed crimes, simply, as “bullshit.”

This is Luke Mogelson’s story, published in THENEWYORKER. Click on the link in the first paragraph of his story. Read the article, a tale of woe, of ignorance, of racism and bigotry.

Game changer for blood pressure

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It’s estimated that close to half (45%) of all US adults suffer from a form of hypertension or high blood pressure. Perhaps even more troubling, only 24% of those individuals have their condition under control…

So, what can you do to lower your high blood pressure/prevent hypertension from ever occurring? For years, doctors have long advised hypertension patients to get moving. Walking has supposedly been the “gold standard” behavioral treatment for blood pressure issues. Now, however, a new study just released by the University of Saskatchewan finds stretching actually provides more blood pressure benefits than walking…

“Everyone thinks that stretching is just about stretching your muscles,” says kinesiology professor Dr. Phil Chilibeck, a co-author of the study, in a release. “But when you stretch your muscles, you’re also stretching all the blood vessels that feed into the muscle, including all the arteries. If you reduce the stiffness in your arteries, there’s less resistance to blood flow.”

Looks to be a really interesting read…a useful addition to my regular exercise routine. My blood pressure is already low for an old geezer. A lifetime of aerobic exercise and sport has pretty much sorted that out. But…and that’s the important part…nothing wrong with modifying, updating the whole regimen when research suggests an addition.

As night follows day…

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Like every political sound from the lips of Bannon – or Trump – fraud, deceit, lies are never missing. Any serious scholar of history classifies what they are trying to start as a “counter-revolution”. Fascism is not a step forward. It carries us in a stream of offal, blood and death, back into obedience to authoritarian violence. An end to democracy.

I come and stand at every door…

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No unique occasion. On my sunset walk, this afternoon, I was remembering times past, those who are gone. I remembered opening for Dr. King some time back in the 1960’s when I was singing a lot, everywhere. It was a street corner rally in New Haven, Connecticut. We had a wooden platform up on a corner so folks could see and hear. And, as well as I recall, this was one of the last songs I sang before introducing MLK.

Learned it from Pete’s recording.

Veterans cleaning up after Trump’s ragtag insurrection attempt

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Ben Peifer

When Capitol Hill was in chaos on Jan. 6, David Smith was there.

Smith, 40, was distributing hand-warmers to homeless people nearby when the siege started. He watched in disbelief as a menacing mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

“It was pretty gut wrenching to see,” said Smith, who retired less than a month ago after serving in the Navy for 13 years.

As a veteran, he was especially horrified, he said, to learn that his fellow vets participated in the insurrection, including Jake Angeli, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” and Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed in the Capitol…

Smith decided he wanted to do something about it, calling on a group of fellow veterans and volunteers to do a thorough sweep of the area around the Capitol and downtown D.C. Beyond ridding the area of hateful markings, Smith hoped to reinforce that the veterans who participated in the siege do not represent them all.

My kind of military. My kind of veteran.