Looking back, Biden’s inauguration feels like a somewhat normal COVID affair. Three things stick out most in a lot of people’s minds. First, having a real president who sounds like a real president, simply being normal as well as optimistic. Second, the chill. Bernie Sanders dressed like a man who is used to dressing for cold weather and not caring what people think of the look. And, of course, the poem – never to be forgotten.
Yes, being a writer, we had some serious schadenfreude watching clips of MAGAs crying in shock. Many had believed that military paratroopers were going to drop down and arrest Biden.
But apparently, Mitch McConnell had heard rumors that something truly awful could happen. From Politico:
Two days after pro-Donald Trump rioters attacked the Capitol, then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien got a call from Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and an aide who asked him to look into something he’d been hearing: retired military personnel sympathetic to Donald Trump might be preparing to prevent Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“[H]e was concerned that there were reports that there were retired military personnel who were sympathetic to the president and might be organizing,” O’Brien said in the interview. McConnell’s own national security aide, Robert Karem, was on the call as well and raised similar concerns about Navy SEALs, O’Brien said.
About Navy SEALs.
Sure, it sounds fantastical now, but if we go back to those days and the anger the MAGAs carried around, all because their god told them that the election was stolen when even he knew it wasn’t, nothing seemed “impossible.” Who else felt good that Donald Trump did not plan to attend the peaceful transfer of power? If Trump had decided to attend, I’d have worried that something might be up. Could he have resisted not going to the microphone, not trying to prevent the swearing-in?
Nothing seemed impossible, and the fact that Mitch McConnell was worried enough to call the National Security Director takes one right back to those days. One can bet that McConnell was plenty happy to see Air Force One takeoff that morning… loaded with boxes.
Merry Christmas.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK
Nazis dragged Jews into the street, beat & shot them. Raped mothers & daughters in the street. Please tell me what decency we should expect from these neonazis? We’ve never, as white citizens, seen that kind of horror. Black folks have, or have ancestors who have. Yet, we now elect governors/congress members/a president who run on lies that we are traumatizing white children by teaching critical race theory in the schools. Who say there are fine people on both sides. If we don’t expect the worst from these evil pissants, we are living with our heads up our collective asses.
One of the most moving lines I heard right after Trump was elected from a black friend: “You know how you feel now? That’s how we’ve always felt, only now it’s even worse.”
There was a lot of talk from the insurrectionists about Jan 20.
Makes sense! Psycho Trump & his stupid followers, watched his ENABLED, violent MOB of White Nationalists/Nazi’s, from a bunker in the WH, for Hours! Guess it was the FINAL step over the LINE for McConnell! Trump has destroyed the original GOP & replaced them with phony Politicians, who are untrustworthy & have no honor or integrity!
I don’t buy the idea that SEALs (or other Special Ops troops) would have taken part in such a thing. Gen. Milley made his point to the troops during the transition – fuck with things at your peril. Sadly, I can see former troops including spec ops types tinkering with ideas on how to stop, or at least delay the Inauguration. That evil fuck Erik Prince, no doubt angry at the loss of mercenary contracts around the world due to an American President PROPERLY leading the free world again was pissed. Still is. And he’s got the resources to have backed this kind of stunt.
For me the interesting thing is McConnell was concerned enough to reach out to report what he was hearing. THAT tells me he was hearing stuff from enough sources, or from at least one source he found highly credible that he wanted to be sure those responsible for security at the Capitol were prepared. Even if the person(s) he reported his concerns to were sympathetic to the plan McConnell reporting it told them they had a problem. That any plan being worked on was “blown” because Yertle surely clued in Gen. Milley and people he knew who would do their fucking jobs.
Still, it’s scary that he had to do what he did. And I’d sure as hell like to know just where he got his information!