President Joe Biden chose to honor 14 people with Presidential Citizens Medal on the two-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection. CNN and MSNBC carried the entire ceremony live, which was a joy – even though it brought back painful memories of violence and obscenity by the Trump supporters who thought it was their “patriotic duty” to attack the Capitol, everyone in it, and try to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
The voting for Speaker of the House and Kevin McCarthy’s antics were on display all week. Friday night was especially entertaining, if that is the proper word for people who two years ago were attacking the Capitol and threatening to murder then-Vice President Mike Pence and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
What is difficult to digest is the fact that many of the election deniers of two years ago, and many of the same people who destroyed the Capitol and threatened the lives of everyone who worked in the seat of democracy on January 6, 2021, are still in office. Or will be in office, once McCarthy wins the Speakership on the fifteenth15th ballot — 15th!
Meanwhile, the disciplined Democrats across the aisle stayed firm and consistently voted, all 212 of them, for Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader. All night long. Fifteen times.
Earlier in the day, when the Democrats held a special prayer observance to commemorate the lives sacrificed in defense of the Capitol in the wake of the Trump insurrectionists, only one Republican official showed up: Pennsylvania’s Republican Congressman Brian Fitzgerald. What a brave soul he is!
President Joe Biden marked the two-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021, insurrection by awarding for the first time in his presidency the Presidential Citizens Medal to 14 people.
The individuals included law enforcement officers who were injured defending the Capitol, a Capitol Police officer who died the day after rioters stormed the building and election workers who rejected efforts by former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election. President Biden also awarded medals to the surviving family members of police officers who had died in serving their country on January 6.
The Presidential Citizens Medal is one of the country’s highest civilian honors, given to American citizens deemed to have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.” Biden’s decision to distinguish Americans he sees as having protected the nation’s Capitol, its democratic institutions and elections system, is one of the major ways in which the president has sought to draw a stark contrast from his predecessor.
CNN aired a documentary which had been filmed on January 6 by two women who were with a French news agency. Some of their footage was even more violent and upsetting than what had been aired before.
Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon was interviewed about her concerns for the U.S. House Rules Committee which she has been serving on. Now that McCarthy is the Speaker and has promised seats on the most important committees to the election deniers who ended up allowing him to finally grasp the Speaker’s gavel. Congresswoman Scanlon is very worried about impending legislation which will now be held captive by the Freedom Caucus members.
Congresswoman Susan Wild was interviewed as well, recalling how she was held captive on the floor of the Senate building and she had to call her children to say goodbye. In case she never made it home safely after the vicious crowd of Trump supporters had broken in doors and windows and swarmed into the Capitol. Congressman Jamie Raskin’s interview was particularly revealing as he recounted how he apologized to his daughter and her fiancé, promising that the next time they came to the Capitol it would never be like the insurrection. His daughter assured him that she was never coming back to the Capitol, which broke his heart.
Congresswoman Madeleine Dean had an equally moving story of being trapped in the Capitol, reaching for a gas mask under her seat, and wondering how she and her colleagues, Republican and Democratic, would ever escape.
But watching the insurrectionists who are still in Congress has me very worried about the future, about legislation which must be passed, about “investigations” which the Freedom Caucus and QANON followers on the Republican side of the aisle are determined to carry out
Maybe enough footage has been aired that most Americans realize the insurrection was real. And was dangerous.
Bonnie Squires is a communications consultant who writes weekly for Main Line Media News and can be reached at www.bonniesquires.com. She hosts the “Bonnie’s Beat” TV show at MLTV- MAIN LINE NETWORK.
