New Video: "The Party of Law and Order"

 This.

Horrific new video obtained by CNN shows a MAGA rioter (in white hat and backpack) grab a DC Metro officer and pull him down Capitol steps where he is stomped and beaten with an American flag pole.
At one point they sing the Star Spangled Banner pic.twitter.com/XXJMxanGXp

— Bill Weir (@BillWeirCNN) January 10, 2021

At about the same time, this: 

And you must remember this:

June 6, 2020

I am your law and order President.

What I Say:  Today the House of Representatives will formally ask Vice President Pence to oust Trump under the provisions of the 25th Amendment; and if Pence refuses to do so, the House will begin work on Articles of Impeachment.  In this interview, Rep. Jim McGovern says some words your Head Trucker has not yet had a chance to say here in the Blue Truck about the crisis and the perpetrators of this attack on our government.

The House will seek to take up a resolution from Rep. Jamie Raskin on Monday urging Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. If blocked, the House would consider impeachment.

Rep. Jim McGovern says this may happen Wednesday or Thursday. pic.twitter.com/cR7QFLm2i1

— New Day (@NewDay) January 11, 2021

But I will tell you one more word I am thinking of very hard:  ARREST.  Any other person inciting a murderous mob to attack our seat of government - the nation is looking at you, Giuliani, and you, Junior -  would be cuffed and booked and thrown under the jailhouse as quick as the police could lay hands on him.  I understand the concept of presidential immunity, which has its proper place in the scheme of things; but NO president can be allowed to incite insurrection from the back yard of the White House, you might say, and get away with it.

If Trump can't be arrested today, he damn well should be at 12:01 p.m. on January 20th.  And the law, and if need be the Constitution, must be changed as quickly as possible to authorize the immediate arrest and removal from office of ANY president who foments sedition, rebellion, or treason, now or in future.  

HE CAN'T BE ALLOWED TO JUST WALK AWAY, SNEERING AND SNICKERING AT ALL THE BLOODY CHAOS HE CAUSED.

The FBI is busting rioters all over the country even as I type; why not the mobster who sicced them on the Capitol?  This gap in the law must be closed.  I understand it might be a tricky thing to work out in legal terms - but we must come down HARD on the perpetrators of this vile attempt to overthrow the constitutional order, or as McConnell said the other day, our democracy will enter a death spiral.  That is my considered opinion, for what it's worth.

P. S. -- Will someone please cc this highly pertinent article to McGovern and Pelosi ASAP?  Thanks.

Democrats Are Pursuing the Wrong Impeachment Charges against Trump - from Politico

-----

Schwarzenegger Denounces Trump, Calls for Unity

Wow. Former Republican governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger in a powerhouse statement has just denounced Trump and his enablers as Nazi-like liars and enemies of democracy, and calls on Americans to unite behind Joe Biden. This you have to see, fellas.  I think my overseas truckbuddies will appreciate these remarks as well, coming from an Austrian-born immigrant to these shores.

 

Quote:  

President Trump is a failed leader.  He will go down in history as the worst president ever.  The good thing is he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.

Your Head Trucker is proud to hear him testify. This will reach some hearts and minds that badly need a wake-up call. Thank you, Conan!

-----

Sunday Drive: Esteban, My Country 'Tis of Thee

-----

Lying Brownnoser Ted Cruz Tells The Big One

Please forgive my lapse into intemperate language, fellas, but I feel it is my journalistic duty to report plainly to you about thus stinking scumbag who, though he has a seat in Congress, does not represent me or my fellow Texans in any moral sense.

Your Head Trucker well recalls that during the presidential campaign of 2016, Texas Senator Ted Cruz - after Trump had insulted Cruz's wife and accused Cruz's father of conspiring to assassinate John F. Kennedy - was the very last big Republican politician to oppose Trump.  Cruz swore and be damned that he would never, ever support Trump, and held out all the way to October, I think.  And then, just a few weeks before Election Day - inexplicably - Cruz suddenly went crawling on his hands and knees to kiss Trump's ass.  He even recorded some videos or robocalls for him, I believe.

And all this long time, obedient sub boy Cruz has kept his nose right there, supporting everything Trump said or did, and never a breath of criticism.  And on Wednesday, minutes before Trump's mob attacked Congress, Cruz was on the floor of the House, front and center, leading the legislative attack on the electoral vote, the legitimate will of the People, as Cruz's dungeonmaster bid him do.

All that was bad enough.  But yesterday, Cruz had the brazen gall to go on television and tell the Big Fucking Lie that he has "disagreed with the President's rhetoric and language for the last four years."  Proving beyond all doubt that even after his filthy coup attempt failed miserably, Trump still has Cruz's balls in his back pocket.

CNN's Erin Burnett gives all the evidence, past and present, that anyone could need to condemn Cruz as the desperate, conniving monumental liar that he is:

No admission of wrongdoing, no remorse, only a glaring untruth.  Lying bootlicker Cruz has enabled a would-be dictator at every step of the way, tried to overthrow the election, perverted his oath to support the Constitution, and made himself a laughingstock.  He should leave D. C. as soon as Trump does, and in like shame.

Update, 8 a.m.--I'm not the only Texan who's steamed.  The Houston Post castigates Cruz, calls on him to resign:

"U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz lied to Americans about widespread voter fraud that never existed," the Editorial Board writes. "He should resign and deliver Texans from the shame of calling him our senator." https://t.co/WzHyZ8xolH

— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) January 9, 2021

Editorial: Texans backed Trump over democracy https://t.co/6Y6MHiZ3id

— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) January 9, 2021

Update, 1/10/21, 12:15 a.m.--On Friday, President-Elect Joe Biden went there: he called out Cruz (and his partner in crime Hawley) by name as being partners in the Big Lie, which he compared to Goebbel's propaganda in Nazi Germany. 

See also:  Never Forget What Ted Cruz Did - New York Times, 1/11/21

-----

Who Saved America?

Since Wednesday's attempted coup, it seems to me that the mood of the whole country has changed; at least the failed assault on democracy has clarified some formerly die-hard Trump enablers' minds.  You know the ship is going down when the rats start jumping overboard, and plenty are scrambling away from the S. S. Trump even as I write, it seems.  

I can't compete with the news media in reporting all that is happening in Washington and elsewhere today, but I will say this:  despite some woe-is-us editorials I've seen, your Head Trucker is confident that all shall be well in America.  Our democracy was jumped by some muggers the other day and took a few body blows, but did not go to the mat.  The Constitutional order held; the will of the People was honored by the vast majority of members of Congress, doing their duty according to law.  

Your Head Trucker will admit that he wept when Mike Pence announced that Biden and Harris had been duly elected the next President and Vice President of the United States.  The system worked - not because it is perfect or because we are perfect - but because fundamentally decent men and women would not let it fail, even in the face of armed attack.  In fact, with only a handful of exceptions, our Senators and Representatives on both sides of the aisle seemed to surmount their ordeal with renewed determination to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States.  I'm sure I am not the only ordinary citizen who feels we owe them a great debt of gratitude.

Already, a new wind arises in this nation, dispelling the fog and miasma that oppressed us.  The sun is rising, the land is bright, a new day has begun.  Let us walk forward together in trust and hope, and fear not.  The road ahead may be steep, but take heart:  it leads us onward and upward again.

But let us not forget what just happened - and what might have happened.  For the record, here are some scenes and voices worth remembering, for one reason or another. History will judge who the true patriots were.

Thank God they didn’t get to him in the Capitol building. Perhaps there are consequences when the President of the United States lies to millions of his supporters telling them the Vice President has the unilateral ability to overturn the result and ensure a second term of Trump. https://t.co/lAWqN1RDgS

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) January 8, 2021

Some of the Trump fanatics constructed a gallows near the Capitol reflecting pool and another group of them fashioned a crude noose from stolen AP camera cables and hung it from a tree. https://t.co/kz1tK8TfXA pic.twitter.com/9ovr1q7rEY

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) January 8, 2021

 

 And finally, on his Wednesday night show, satirist Stephen Colbert provided a scathing summation of the day's events:

-----

Pelosi and Schumer Call for Trump's Removal

Whoa.  Senate Majority Leader Schumer just called on Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.  Pelosi did the same in a simultaneous news conference in the House.  Things are moving at warp speed in Congress - your Head Trucker applauds this development.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls on @VP Mike Pence and Trump’s cabinet “to remove this president by immediately invoking the 25th amendment.” If they do not act, Congress may be prepared to impeach him.pic.twitter.com/lcUjGlZpPV

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 7, 2021

Meanwhile, CNN's Van Jones makes a razor-sharp point about race in America, as demonstrated by the outrageous failure to stop or even arrest the invaders of the Capitol yesterday - all or most of whom were white:

  

President-Elect Joe Biden also noted and condemned the racial disparity:

Biden: "No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn't have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that's true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable." pic.twitter.com/TfWa25VzEt

— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 7, 2021

-----

TRUMP'S COUP FAILS

Trump's reign of misrule began with "American Carnage" and it ends with American carnage.

For the benefit of my overseas truckbuddies and any others who care to watch, here are some videos of the filthy, horrific scene at the Capitol - a direct attack on our democracy at its very heart - the culmination of abomination that has been growing for the last four years - continuously cultivated by an evil man and his minions:

Just minutes before the rioters broke into the Capitol, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell broke decisively with Trump, urging his Republican colleagues to accept the fact of Biden's electoral victory:

 

About 3 p.m. Texas time, nearly three hours after the Capitol was invaded, President-Elect Joe Biden addressed the nation with a stirring call to patriotic values:

 

About half an hour later, the current occupant of the Oval Office hypocritically poured gasoline on the fire he himself started:

  

What I Say:  Your Head Trucker has faith that our Republic will survive this brazen attempt at overthrowing our democracy; but the name of this filthy would-be tyrant will be an execration down all the centuries to come, and his descendants will bear the shame of it to the last generation.

-----

Aftermath, 1/7/21, 5 a.m.--To their eternal credit, the members of the House and Senate, undaunted by armed attack, reconvened at 7 p.m. last night, Texas time, to continue and complete their Constitutional duty of certifying the vote of the People. In the early hours of the morning, Vice President Mike Pence dutifully announced the result from the chair of the Senate, sealing beyond all doubt or question the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next President and Vice President of the United States.

 

The chaplain of the Senate, the Rev. Barry Black, delivered this prayer from the dais, echoing in large part the prayers of millions, including your Head Trucker, these several months:

Lord of our lives and sovereign of our beloved nation, we deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy.

These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the power of life and death is in the tongue. We have been warned that eternal vigilance continues to be freedom's price.

Lord, you have helped us remember that we need to see in each other a common humanity that reflects your image.

You have strengthened our resolve to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic as well as foreign.

Use us to bring healing and unity to our hurting and divided nation and world. Thank you for what you have blessed our lawmakers to accomplish in spite of threats to liberty.

Bless and keep us. Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to do your will and guide our feet on the path of peace. And God bless America. We pray in your sovereign name, Amen.

Your Head Trucker would add only, Thanks be to God.  Alleluia.

So the election is settled. Now we must somehow wait another two weeks for the life of the Nation to begin anew - with a wild beast, a raving, resentful madman, the enemy of the People, in the White House, manifestly unfit to govern. This is so wrong. In this modern world of instant terror and pushbutton destruction, there should be a quick and simple way to protect the Nation from a rogue President; just how that could be done by legal and constitutional means is the thought of many minds at this time, I am sure. 

I was very proud to see that Vice President Pence, after four years of kowtowing to the monster's whims, at last acted the man and the patriot today in fulfilling his Constitutional duty to ensure the peaceful, legitimate continuity of government in our democratic republic. He ought to be Acting President now. 

And one more thing:  I also like the fact that the Congress publicly certified the votes that each of the fifty states had already certified, in a ceremony that is usually a mere formality.  Notice what great legitimacy and certainty it gives to the results.  No sane mind can now entertain the slightest doubt that the next President was lawfully elected - a fact endorsed by dozens of courts across the land that have unanimously refused to overturn the will of the People.

Our election system needs an overhaul and tune-up, to be sure, and perhaps a new set of wheels - but keep today's profound scenes in mind as you listen in the coming months and years to the debate about reforming our system of electing a President.  Efficiency is important - but even more so is public confidence in the fairness and accuracy of the results.  These things are not mutually exclusive.

-----

Update, 1/7/21, 11 a.m.--The political landscape seems to be shifting by the hour in the wake of yesterday's violent attack on Congress.  To show how far minds have changed in just 24 hours, studly Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger has just posted this video on Twitter calling for Trump to be removed from office by the 25th Amendment:

It’s with a heavy heart I am calling for the sake of our Democracy that the 25th Amendment be invoked. My statement: pic.twitter.com/yVyQrYcjuD

— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) January 7, 2021

-----

Happy New Year 2021

 

Well, fellas, at last we have reached the end of a tumultuous year, a time to pause and reflect on where we have been and what we have learned; yet the relentless spiral of Time goes on and on - for better or worse, who can say?  

Your Head Trucker is not completely in sync with the frantic modern world, its frenzies, follies, or fashions, but one has to make the best of it.  Like leaves floating on a stream, sometimes calm, sometimes rapid, we are carried along with the flow of changes and chances in this mortal life, helpless to stem the flood of Time that bears us ever onward, like it or not.

It is always the best of times and the worst of times:  annus mirabilis to some, annus horribilis to others.  Let us pray that this coming year will at least be a better one - and more peaceful - than the one now ending.  I wish good health, good luck, and good cheer to all my truckbuddies around the world - and I thank you all for rolling along with me here in the Blue Truck.  God bless.

The Feast of the Holy Name

-----

The Pork Boys Do Christmas 2020

M.P. likes to string lots of lights out front, but this year settled for simplicity.  I think it's pretty enough for two old men who don't need to be falling off ladders.

Since the annual family dinner was cancelled on account of the pandemic, we were left with a larder full of goodies that M.P. has been accumulating over the past few months, as he always does, in anticipation of feeding a houseful of his posterity.  But nothing daunted, M.P. has carried on with cooking as planned - we have simply decided to celebrate not merely one day, but all twelve days of Christmas this year, each with something delicious to eat.  Of course leftovers are part of the plan, but every day M.P. thinks up some new dish or treat for us to enjoy.  Monday it was homemade shortbread cookies.  Yesterday it was mini-tacos, a nice change of taste after being well-nigh surfeited with ham, duck, and even goose.

Here are a few pics to show you what I mean:

Christmas Eve hors d'oeuvres:  yummy deviled quail eggs, eight kinds of cheese, assorted crackers, and a pot of luscious cream of green bean soup (sounds yucky, but believe me when I tell you it is really sublime).  The array of spoons was not really necessary for just us two, but isn't it pretty?

La table, soup bowls at the ready.

M.P. made the lighted wreath out of twigs and things he picked up in the yard.

Christmas Day buffet:  this time with the addition of scrumptious homemade pate de foie gras as well as a plate of oven-fried chicken pops coated with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese.

Cardinals have been a favorite Christmas motif of ours for years, since we have a family of them that nests in one of the backyard trees.  But notice that our new lighted centerpiece has two red cardinals.  Think about it.

Candlelight makes the season bright, whether real or artificial.

A view from the fireplace end of the room.  When M.P.'s family comes to dinner, we somehow manage to seat 14 people in this same space, using extra tables and chairs.  M.P. loves to cook for his young'uns, but he does admit Christmas is a bit more enjoyable this year without having to deal with the logistics of feeding a crowd.

We are very thankful, considering all the things that might have turned out much worse this year, personally and politically, that despite the infirmities of advancing age and precarious finances, we are still able to enjoy good cheer, good food, glad hearts, and quiet minds.  I hope all my truckbuddies are likewise enjoying this season of renewed hope and goodwill with those they love.

-----

The Queen's Christmas Broadcast, 2020

Her Majesty the Queen broadcast her annual Christmas message to the nation and the Commonwealth today - and a deeply moving message it was, too.

Even on the darkest nights, there is hope in the new dawn.

-----

Merry Christmas 2020

Credo quia pulchrum est.

The Adoration of the Shepherds, by
Gerard van Honthorst, ca. 1622.  Click to enlarge.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

and was made man . . .

to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, 

to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

The Gramophone Ghana Chorus sings out the good news with joy:

 

It has been a year of unexpected changes, great and small; and even Christmas is being celebrated differently this year by many people around the world, though the spirit of the season is still evident if one has eyes to see it.  

After a toilsome week of cleaning up the messes left by successive Christmas parties at his school, M.P. rested a bit at home and then got busy once again stringing lights on the front of the house, and decorating the living/dining room with a truckload of abandoned poinsettias he brought home from work.  Now it looks a bit like a Christmas garden in there, considering it was already filled up with all the outside potted plants that we are sheltering indoors for the winter - a couple of them are as tall as I am.

M.P. has also given the main rooms a Christmas cleaning, though not quite as thoroughly as usual, because this year his children and grandchildren are not coming for the annual Yule dinner at Papaw's house; after a good deal of dithering and twittering and what-shall-we-do-ing, the group mind finally settled on each family staying home and cooking for themselves.  Which is a prudent decision for all concerned, old and young; but M.P. had already laid in supplies of Christmas foods that he was not about to let go to waste, including a nice fat duck, and a ham that he produced himself by curing and smoking a piece of ordinary pork loin - which seems a miracle to me.  

So on Monday evening, the day of the winter solstice and, this year, the remarkable Great Conjunction - a fascinating sight in the southwestern sky - M.P. after much cheffing around in the kitchen served up a luscious Yule dinner for just us two, and here are the pics to prove it.  Of course, the proof is in the eating, but you just have to take my word for it that every single bite was deee-licious.

From 5 o'clock:  apricot-glazed ham (so tender it fell apart in cutting); succulent roast duck leg; deep-fried diced parsnips (like potatoes, but slightly sweeter); creamed sweet potatoes; spinach-cheese casserole; and a deep-fried biscuit, crispy outside and oh-so-buttery inside.

Of course, we have been re-heating and re-eating this same meal ever since, delightedly.  But there is more to come from the depths of the pantry and deep freeze:  On Friday M.P. will bestir himself to cook a proper Christmas dinner; then next week, a New Year's dinner; and the week after that, a King's Day dinner, with I hope, a nice King's Cake to top things off.  And your Head Trucker, being also Head Dishwasher of this joint, will do his part to keep kitchen operations rolling along.

Yesterday M.P. spent the whole day boxing and wrapping presents for his progeny (4 adult children, 3 spouses at the moment, and 4 little tykes), including all sorts of fascinating toys and dolls and whaddayacallits that toddle and coo and go root-a-toot-toot.  Later today he will drop them off, and then come back to put up our Christmas tree.  (While he is gone, I will wrap the few presents I got for him.)  On the big day, there will be a family Zoom conference to watch the unwrappings at the various houses, which for parents is the climax of all their endeavors.  How lucky we all are to live in an age of such technological miracles.

And so Christmas is not ruined at all, just a little different this year; I do hope by next Christmas things can get back to the usual routine - busy but comforting in the endless procession of the years.  And I hope all of my truckbuddies are enjoying some Christmas cheer right now - though you may be apart from your loved ones, and perchance even Zoomless, you can still be united in spirit.  And I believe that, come what may in this mortal life, nothing can ever separate us from the eternal Love that moves the stars, and moves our willing hearts, by whatever name you call it.

I am thankful for the quiet good cheer M.P. and I share here in our humble circumstances, with general health and finances stable at the moment; as we have both reflected, it would be a sad thing, growing older, to eat alone day after day.  It's harder to cook for one than for two.  So we celebrate what we have with grateful hearts.  I'll close these rambling thoughts now with some musical selections that sum up the meaning and the joy of Christmas for me.  My prayers go up for peace on this troubled earth and goodwill among men all over the world;  and from our house to all of yours, we send best wishes for a very Merry Christmas.

The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Feast of 

Christmas Day

-----