Disharmony, A Feeling Of Impending Doom & Chaos Have Always Been Helpful To Fascist Movements

Now a Lt Colonel in the Air National Guard, Adam Kinzinger probably knows how to fire a gun. He was a fighter pilot who flew missions over Afghanistan and Iraq. Somewhere along the way, someone must have taught him how to shoot a firearm; besides, he's a Republican and that's what they do, no? During an interview with SE Cupp for Rolling Stone, published on Monday, he said he was sure enough that a violent Trumpist mob was going to attack the Capitol on 1/6 that he warned McCarthy-- who ignored him-- the day before and instructed his staff to take the day off. He didn't though and came armed with his service pistol, which he said he was prepared to use, "hunkered down" in his office for six hours "with my gun out, prepared to defend against my own party" while the treasonous Trumpists were rampaging through the Capitol smearing human feces on the walls and screaming about hanging Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.

"If you’re already at a point where you’re beating down police officers, and you’re willing to sack the U.S. Capitol, which hadn’t been done in hundreds of years, if you come face-to-face with Chief RINO in his office, who doesn’t believe that Donald Trump won reelection, yeah, they’re going to try to fight and kill me, and I’m not going to let that happen," he told Cupp when she asked him if he would really shoot American citizens. He said feft "a real sense of evil" in the Capitol that day... I just felt a real darkness, like a thick, bad feeling."

Kinzinger told Cupp he thinks all this stoking of violence many on the far right are resorting to might be "good" for the GOP in the short run-- the midterms-- but could kill the party over time. "I think in the short term, stoking division, using the fear and darkness, will win the midterms in 2022. In the long term, this will destroy the GOP. Or it will destroy the country, because this is an unsustainable path."

Do the Democrats have what it takes to stop them? The Republicans have come to this fight armed with bazookas and uzis; the Democrats are hiding in their little plastic castle. The select committee pre-delegitimized by Trump and his enablers for at least half the country, keeps issuing subpoenas, mostly ignored, while the Department of Justice twiddles its thumbs, clearly not understanding what they're dealing with. On Monday they subpoenaed Trump's 2020 campaign manager Bill Stephen, campaign advisor Jason Miller, crackpot attorney John Eastman (who can easily plead insanity), deranged fascist Michael Flynn, campaign executive assistant Angela McCallum and coup plotter Bernie Kerik. Yesterday they added 10 more names: the in-house Nazi, Stephen Miller, former White House deputy chief of staff Christopher Liddell, former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Kenneth Klukowski, former senior counsel to Trump enabler Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and a pack of assistants unknown to the general public, like Nicholas Luna, Molly Michael, Ben Williamson, John McEntee, Keith Kellogg and Cassidy Hutchinson.

CNN reported that the committee, according to chair Bennie Thompson is trying to "know precisely what role the former President and his aides played in efforts to stop the counting of the electoral votes and if they were in touch with anyone outside the White House attempting to overturn the outcome of the election."

The committee is pushing ahead with issuing subpoenas even though the Justice Department has not yet indicated whether prosecutors will pursue criminal contempt charges against Trump ally Steve Bannon for defying his congressional order to appear and provide testimony.

The committee notes in its letter to Miller that he, by his own account, "participated in efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud in the November 2020 election, as well as efforts to encourage state legislatures to alter the outcome of the November 2020 election by appointing alternate slates of electors."

Miller and his team also helped prepare for Trump's remarks at the Ellipse on January 6 prior to the riot, was at the White House that day, and was with the former President when he spoke at the "Stop the Steal" rally, the committee added.

The committee's subpoena of McEnany shows a specific interest in her public statements related to spreading misinformation about the 2020 election results. As press secretary, McEnany served in one of the most highly visible roles in the Trump administration. She spoke not only from the White House lectern, but also from the campaign headquarters as a spokesperson.

The committee specifically pointed to many of her public statements as contributing to the belief there was something wrong with the election.

McEnany "made multiple public statements from the White House and elsewhere about purported fraud in the November 2020 election. For example, in the first White House press conference after the election, Ms. McEnany claimed that there were 'very real claims' of fraud that the former President's reelection campaign was pursuing, and said that mail-in voting was something that 'we have identified as being particularly prone to fraud.' At another press conference, Ms. McEnany accused Democrats of 'welcoming fraud' and 'welcoming illegal voting,'" the panel said. In addition, McEnany was reportedly present at times with the former President as he watched the January 6 attack.

The other Republican-- along with Kinzinger-- on the select committee and, like him, her career derailed by Trump, is Liz Cheney who, at an event in New Hampshire yesterday said that Trump is at war "with the rule of law and the Constitution" and that GOP lawmakers who sit by silently are aiding his efforts. "Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics or will we look away from the danger and the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar? There is no gray area when it comes to that question, when it comes to this moment. There is no middle ground."

Meanwhile, crazy old psycho has no middle ground either: