Friday, May 28, 2021

Editorial: Voters deserve answers on the Capitol riots. Mike Waltz and John Rutherford voted against that. Why? (DBNJ & St. Augustine Record)

I once held out hope for Michael George Glen Waltz, the first Green Beret elected to Congress, but he is proving to be no better than retromingent reactionary John Henry Rutherford, a tool of the febrile fool in Mar-a-lago. 

The two local Congressmen elected to represent St. Johns County in the 117th Congress have done a mighty poor job of it.  They BOTH voted against an independent Commission to investigate the January 6, 2021 attack on our Capitol and our democracy.  Share their shame.  

From St. Augustine Record and Daytona Beach News-Journal:





Voters deserve answers on the Capitol riots. Mike Waltz and John Rutherford voted against that. Why?

News-Journal editorial board

The Jan. 6 attack on the nation’s Capitol unfolded before the public eye, and Americans still could not believe what they were seeing.

More:Volusia, Flagler officials condemn MAGA storming of U.S. Capitol

They saw people dressed in patriotic clothing and red hats tearing down police barricades and scaling the wall to a high-perched balcony. They saw photos of people posing for selfies inside Nancy Pelosi’s trashed office and video of marauders rifling through desks on the Senate floor. They heard rioters screaming for various representatives — everyone from Pelosi to Sen. Ted Cruz — to come out and face their wrath, with some threatening instant lynching. They heard reports that some people had been seriously injured, even killed. Eventually, they learned that five had died.

Joe Biggs, bottom left, in gray and black checked jacket, marches at the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, in this photo shared in a Department of Justice affidavit supporting Biggs' arrest.

And they read tweets and Facebook posts from their own Congressmen. Most condemned the attackers. Many called on President Donald Trump to quell the violence — a call he resisted for hours.

Now, some of these same lawmakers are resisting their own constituents’ call to have a full, bipartisan public examination of the events of that terrible day. We were shocked to see our own Rep. Mike Waltz among those who voted “no” last week when the proposal was up for a vote in the House. That’s because we remember Waltz, a former Green Beret, describing how he crouched down on the floor of the House chamber as rioters pounded at the door, and how he recognized the smell of tear gas wafting through the chamber door. Among the Florida delegation, only two Republicans — Carlos Jimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar — voted in favor of the commission.

U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz speaks on Fox News after rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol

Don't Republicans want to know how protesters came to be in possession of tear gas? How they knew which offices to storm? Why they got in so easily, who their leaders were, and how (or if) the event was orchestrated?

How could they vote against the truth?

A thin blue line flag is held by a protester as Trump supporters fight with police during the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.

We don’t understand it, and we certainly deplore it. This was a shocking, dark day in the history of this nation — an affront to democracy on par with the assassination of a president, and it hit home particularly hard when a Volusia . Americans need to know how this happened. Who led the mob, and who was complicit. They deserve answers.

Rioters attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 in Washington.

They likely won’t get those answers from the criminal investigations that are underway. Protesters are taking plea deals that will obscure the details of their misdeeds.. Lawyers will haggle over which evidence can be presented at trial. A great deal of the evidence will never see the light of day.

With the support of 37 courageous Republican representatives, the bill has passed the House. Now it’s over to the Senate, where there are very credible threats of a filibuster — something Republicans will condone, because they saw their House counterparts voting “no.” Sen. Marco Rubio has already said, publicly, that he thinks the commission is a “joke."

We’d like to know what he finds so funny. Because this is no joking matter. These senators need to hear from their own constituents that a vote to bury the truth will incur the wrath of Floridians. And they need to see their House counterparts take the heat they deserve for their vote to cloak reality in darkness..

Americans should demand the truth. They deserve it.

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