We are not back to normal

Hunter of Daily Kos discussed the media and began:

It's hard to make the case that the American political press knows how to cover American politics. Time and time again we see stories stuffed into the same structural boxes: Democrats are in disarray; parties differ when describing color of sky; today is the day Donald Golfcheat truly became president. A fascist demand to throw out election results and simply appoint Donald Trump the true winner was both correctly pinned as insurrection and, both before and after its failure, put into its own box so that none of the elected officials who pushed forward fantastical, false claims to justify such demands would require new press treatment going forward—even with the new knowledge that these partisans proved willing to lie to the public, aggressively, in a manner intended to undermine public confidence in democracy itself.

At the moment, wrote Hunter, most of the stories about Washington are “Democratic President in Crisis.” Everything Biden does or fails to do is now a crisis. That after four years of the nasty guy?

The problem, though, is that we are not in a new era. The lies of the insurrection are not past—they are continuing in places like Arizona and Georgia. Lawmakers who shouted in fear as violent coup-backing rioters broke through nearby windows are right now claiming that the same riots did not happen or were of no particular consequence. Republican leaders are still deciding, even today, how far they can go in sabotaging investigation of how the past administration's actions, and their own public statements, fomented the violence and caused the resulting deaths. We are not back to normal, and scurrying back to journalism's safe spaces of four years ago for a bit of solace is doing the same disservice as always.

Sydette tweeted:

The Big Lie has gotten more press than the removal of voting rights from most non white people. Republicans have watched EVERYONE be more willing to cover that Lie than even SPEAK to those affected by it so y’all have fun with that.

She listed a few things the Big Lie is used as a cover: Georgia’s voter suppression laws and the fake audit in Arizona.

But hey let's say more about the Big Lie and not what the Big Lie is getting them.

After the January 6 Capitol attack the media story was there had been an “intelligence failure.” Several police and military officials testified they either didn’t get the word about impending violence or the word didn’t get to the right people. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed a report on NPR. It wasn’t a failure of intelligence, it was the Office of Intelligence and Analysis within the Department of Homeland Security. They’re the ones who are supposed to connect the dots and issue warnings. Reasons for the failure: It is understaffed. It is subject to the whims of leadership. The nasty guy told them to focus on threats along the border, not on interior white supremacist militias. The reports it did produce have gone missing. Part of that is they were pressured to produce reports the nasty guy wanted to see. Bu suppressing intelligence DHS set the police up to fail. This is something more that a commission to investigate the attack needs to look into. Yesterday I mentioned a bill to form such a commission passed the House. The final vote was 252-175 with 35 GOP voting for it. I also mentioned the GOP leadership had told the caucus they could vote their conscience. But, Hunter reported, by that evening the leadership changed its tune, saying the were recommending a no vote, then actively campaigning their members for no votes while declaring their opposition and claiming other agencies were already investigating. The difference was in between the nasty guy bellowed his displeasure. The Capitol Police issued a statement condemning the GOP leadership. And, as Laura Clawson of Kos reported, the House is turning towards Plan B in which various committees do the investigative work. Grerg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Amanda Carpenter of Bulwark. She refutes the GOP claim that other investigations are “duplicative” as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared. Carpenter wrote:

None of these efforts, however, has universal jurisdiction to comprehensively evaluate the attack from a 360-degree perspective. And this full and complete picture is exactly the information that must be collected and made publicly available if future attacks on our elections—both in terms of disinformation and physical force—are to be prevented.

GOP members are in opposition because the don’t want to prevent another attack. Rep. Steven Woodrow of Colorado tweeted a nice reminder:

The people who conducted 10 Benghazi investigations want the rest of us to move on from Jan 6th.

A cease fire in Gaza has been announced. Abraham Gutman tweeted:

Palestinians deserve more than not to die. They deserve to live free. A ceasefire only guarantees the former — continued focus on America’s rule in funding and supporting the occupation will help achieve the latter.

Maia Ettiger replied with a comment and a quote:

I’m drowning in rage at my people. If opposing the occupation is threatening Israel’s “right to exist,” than what you’re saying is that the existence of Israel is conditioned on the systemic dehumanization of a people at the point of a gun. And if that’s what you’re saying, then you’re spitting in the face of G-D.

Refaat Alareer added:

but also during ceasefires and "quiets" Palestinians continue to be killed, farmers and fishers shot at, and Palestinian crops near the border sprayed by herbicides by Israeli planes