[guest post by Dana]

[Ed. – If you don’t like posts about the Jan. 6 Committee’s efforts to hold accountable anyone involved in the events of Jan. 6, no matter who they are, and the sad state of today’s Republican Party, then you might want to skip this post.]

I would expect nothing less:

More than 40 conservative figures sent a letter to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday urging him to remove Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from the House GOP conference.

The group, which includes a number of Trump allies, said the two Republicans should be booted from the House conference “due to their egregious actions” as members of the House select committee that is tasked with investigating the circumstances around the Jan. 6 riot.

“As you are aware, this committee has no formal representation from Republicans. Both Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger serve at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.),” the conservatives wrote.

Let’s look at that again: It is an “egregious action” for Republican members to work with Democrats to investigate the events of Jan. 6 and work toward a common goal of identifying the participants and holding them accountable. To assume that Cheney and Kinzinger are rolling over to Democrats because they answered Pelosi’s call is to ignore their intelligence, conservative voting records, and their decision to honor their oath to protect the Constitution.

More:

We ask that the GOP conference meet immediately to vote on stripping Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger from their membership in the GOP conference. We further inform you that conservative leaders are launching a nationwide movement to add citizens voices to this effort.

Cheney hasn’t responded to the letter, but Kinzinger’s spokesperson released this statement:

It’s sad but not surprising that politicians who push conspiracy theories to their constituents and outright lie for their own personal gain are threatened by Congressman Kinzinger, a truth-seeking Member of Congress who respects the institution he serves, the people he represents, and the oath he took to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution.

This is a shot across the bow of any Republicans who might be weighing out whether it’s time to take a stand and push back against the MAGA stranglehold on the Republican Party. And it’s especially a warning to any Republican members to not offer public support to Cheney and Kinzinger. The message from those pushing to eject Cheney and Kinzinger is pretty simple but carries an immense warning: Protect the Constitution of the United States at your own peril even if you swore an oath to do so.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

It seems pretty obvious, but Kevin D. Williamson believes the question demands an answer because too many don’t seem to understand. Sadly, he is correct.

He sets the stage:

Sean Hannity, radio host and off-the-books Donald Trump adviser, demands to know. After all, Hannity points out, there have been scores of riots, some of them deadly, over the past couple of years. Why fixate on that one?

Sean Hannity apparently believes that he has the dumbest audience in America.

In answer to Hannity (and Trump supporters everywhere), Williamson explains why Jan. 6 was different than other riots:

The sacking of the Capitol on January 6 by a gang of enraged Trump acolytes acting on the president’s complaint that the election had been stolen from him is different from other riots because of its particular political character. Stealing Nikes is one thing, and stealing the presidency is another. Hannity knows this. Most of you know this.

…

What has been clear to some of us for a long time — and what is becoming more difficult to deny every day — is that the events of January 6 were part of an attempted coup d’état, one that proceeded on two fronts: As the rioters occupied the Capitol and disrupted the process of certifying the Electoral College votes, Trump’s legal minions sought madly for some pretext upon which to nullify the election. Meanwhile, Trump allies occupying several points on the far-right tail of the bell curve of glue-sniffing madness hatched all kinds of supplementary schemes, some of them involving the military.

A riot that is part of a coup d’état is not very much like a riot that is part of a coup de Target.

It is true that some of the disorder of the past few years has had a distinctly political — revolutionary— character. The CHOP/CHAZ episode in Seattle is one example. But planting your flag on a Seattle sidewalk is a very different thing from having the president of the United States and his official allies make a serious effort at an autocoup — an effort that is, we should very much keep in mind, ongoing, with Trump-aligned Republicans working to take over election-management offices and to continue their effort to delegitimize the 2020 election through lies and conspiracy kookery.

At the very least, if one believes that every effort must be made to identify, arrest, and prosecute the masterminds and looters behind the ongoing smash-and-grab crimes or those who wreaked havoc and destruction during the 2020 summer riots, then consistency demands every effort be made to identify, arrest, and prosecute those who attacked the U.S. Capitol or had any part in the events of Jan. 6. This would naturally include those who incited the riot, the rioters themselves, anyone who tried to impede Congress’s official proceedings at the time, and especially those who had the responsibility to tell rioters to go home but remained silent out of self-interest. This, at the very least…

–Dana