tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com

In case you missed it, today is the followup to the January 6th treasonous insurrection. No one seems to to have any idea what to expect. Congress made a prudent move and took this weekend off. If we have groups that break down barriers again looking for government officials to sacrifice, they might have to look pretty far.

As stories from the January 6th insurrection continue to trickle out, one figure continues to look more and more pathetic. That is of course former (thank the gods) VP Mike Pence who did everything he could think of to subvert the constitution. He even turned to Republican intellectual heavyweight, fellow Indianan and also former VP Dan Quayle for some tips on how to steal the election for Trump.

Even as Pence was trying to steal the election for Trump, Trump himself rejected Pence’s showings of fealty. If Pence couldn’t steal one little election, then what good was he? So somehow Trump or somebody let it be known that Pence was expendable and a crude gallows was built supposedly for Pence to go out in style.

Ah, memories. Will today’s version include Republicans looking to thin their own herd and add it to the Covid pandemic as a way to keep the troops loyal or else.

Unlike the first go round, let us hope there are some arrests made including those hiding away from the action while directing the melee, like Trump did last time.

Protesting against government over reach and bad policies is one of the most civic things a citizen can do. Attempting to overthrow a duly elected government is one of the most dastardly. It must be met with force and the instigators must be punished.

That includes these little quasi-insurrections that are now becoming features of local school board meetings recently. As school boards are meeting to implement sensible mandatory masking policies in schools a rabid minority are disrupting open meetings and attempting to impose their will on the duly elected officials. 

In case you missed the story of the Council Bluffs school board meeting from last Tuesday, a group of rabid anti-maskers tried to take over the school board during the meeting:  

“One man, who emphasized that the board was elected, yelled for the board to “get out of our seats.”

Sowing chaos in government is an old tactic of those who are looking to impose their very narrow and rigid philosophy on the majority. It is not an accident that these tactics are being encouraged by Republican leadership across the country.

If you missed it, a similar situation took place in San Diego, California where anti-maskers declared themselves to be the new school board of the Poway School District:

 The anti-maskers decided ending the meeting meant school board members had vacated their seats, so they “brought in a constitutionalist” to verify this meant they could elect a new board “by quorum,” then made themselves the new school board, with a swearing-in ceremony and everything. Tragically, no sashes or crowns were involved.

Video from inside the attempted overthrow of the Poway USD is extremely concerning. They were trespassing telling… https://t.co/EfgFr2WDhh

— The Activated Podcast (@The Activated Podcast)1631373134.0

The trespassers then told the actual school board members in the building that they were trespassing and would have to leave, saying that they had just lost their jobs.

In the video, you can see proud “new school board president” Derek Greco talking about how the whole thing went down:

GRECO: Hey, good evening everybody, had a pretty interesting night here at the Poway Unified School District Board Meeting, of which they were only allowing select people that they chose to enter the meeting tonight, which is not legit or legal, you can’t just decide who’s allowed in and who’s not.

So we entered the building peacefully, we refused to leave, and we demanded accountability from the Poway Unified School District Board.

And the Board vacated their seats tonight. We then brought in a constitutionalist, who, uh, we held a quorum, and we voted in a new Board. You are looking at the new President of the Poway Unified School District apparently.

The hostile presence at governmental functions and political function has been a major strategy of Republicans since the Teabaggers were riled up into existence over some slight to them back in 2010. This is just another incarnation. Republican leaders and their dupes are using these people like puppets. This is how democracies end.

If tomorrow Republican leaders decided that killing their own voters was a bad idea, then the anti-maskers would become pro-maskers overnight and would be showing up at functions to demand masking mandates.