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Fmr GOP Senator, Defense Secretary Decries Republicans Downplaying Jan 6: ‘Trying to Perform a Frontal Lobotomy on the American People’
By Gideon TaaffeMay 14th, 2021, 9:08 pm
Former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary
William Cohen described GOP officials downplaying the January 6th insurrection as “trying to perform a frontal lobotomy on the American people.”
“I spent nearly a quarter of a century on Capitol Hill and I was able to work with Republicans, Democrats, those who were Independents, and all of them had a respect for the institution. To see what is taking place now is shameful and shameless and those members who are trying to say no big deal on January 6th, they’re trying to perform a frontal lobotomy on the American people, a side effect which is mental dullness.”
Starr & Co., Inc.
Business and Policy Leaders Sign Letter to President Biden Urging U.S. Leadership to Speed Global Vaccination Effort
Friday, May 14, 2021 5:00PM IST (11:30AM GMT)
New York, United States:
A group of 16 international business and policy leaders today published an open letter to U.S. President Joseph R. Biden calling on him to “demonstrate decisive U.S. leadership now” to combat increasingly deadly Covid-19 outbreaks in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
“The U.S. must act now to leverage rapidly increasing U.S. domestic vaccine production, export ever-larger volumes of our surplus supplies, and go to work on the massive technical and logistical challenges to vaccine development on a global scale,” the letter says, noting the rampant spread of the virus in places like India and the Philippines and the likelihood for mutations that will perpetuate globally if left unchecked.
America Needs a Sane and Functioning Republican Party May 14 2021 2:40 PM EDT
I am by no means a Republican. I’m not a big fan of Liz Cheney. I don’t support many of the Republican Party stances, but it doesn’t really have any right now. I’m thinking more nostalgically. I liked Ronald Reagan when I was in college, mostly because I was wooed by his image creators, but I’ve since learned he did no right by me or us. I’ve never voted for a Republican presidential nominee.
Having said all of that, I want a Republican Party that thrives. Does that sound paradoxical?
Of course, Jordan came to the House in 1973 with certain advantages. Her reputation as the first black woman elected to Congress from the South preceded her. And while there were dozens of look-alike white male freshmen, no one was likely to confuse Barbara Jordan with anyone else. Still, it was another black woman Yvonne Braithwaite Burke of Los Angeles who was singled out as the real star; Burke had been temporary chairman of the 1972 Democratic Convention and her picture, not Jordan’s, dominated the women’s pages. Burke and Jordan were the two fledgling Democrats singled out by the Kennedy Institute at Harvard to attend a special month-long seminar just before they took office (William Cohen of Maine and Alan Steelman of Texas were the Republicans). Not once during that month did the two black women discuss any unique problems they might encounter in an overwhelmingly white male institution.
During the Leftists’ riot in Washington, D.C. in June 2020, the National Guard was quickly called in and the riot ended. That was not the case when the Right rioted on January 6th, 2021.
Why? Apparently, a letter signed by ten former Defense Secretaries had a great deal to do with it.
The letter seemed to have a profound effect on the Pentagon and explains why they refused to send in the National Guard for hours.
The former acting secretary of defense said so yesterday (see the clip below).
Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry, and Donald Rumsfeld are the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense who signed the letter.