Thursday, January 08, 2026

Stovetop Taco Soup in the Kitchen

Maggie e-mailed to say her favorite soup recipe -- winter, spring, summer or fall -- is Simply Recipe's Stovetop Taco Soup:


Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground chuck (80/20)

  • 1 (1-ounce) packet taco seasoning, or 3 tablespoons homemade

  • 1 medium yellow onion (about 1 1/2 cups), diced

  • 4 cloves garlic, minced

  • 2 (14.5-ounce) cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes (not drained)

  • 3 cups beef stock

  • 1 (4-ounce) can diced green chiles 

  • 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

  • 1 (15.25-ounce) can corn, drained, or 1 1/2 cups frozen corn, thawed and drained

  • 4 ounces (about 1 cup) shredded cheddar or Colby Jack cheese

  • 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Optional toppings

  • Shredded cheddar cheese

  • Crumbled cotija cheese

  • Diced red onions

  • Avocado

  • Jalapeño slices

  • Sour cream

  • Chopped cilantro

  • Tortilla strips

  • Lime wedges

Method

 Cook the meat and aromatics:

Add the ground chuck to a 6-quart dutch oven. Turn the stove to medium heat and use a large spoon to break up the meat in the pot. Sprinkle the taco seasoning over the beef and brown over medium heat until most of the pink is gone, about 5 minutes. 

Add the diced onions and garlic to the pot with the ground beef. Sauté the veggies with the meat until the onions and garlic are glossy and just beginning to brown, about 4 minutes. 

Remove from the heat. Use a spoon to remove excess fat from the pan and discard.

 Add the tomatoes, beef stock, and chiles:

Stir in the fire-roasted tomatoes, beef stock, and green chiles. 

Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cover the pot. Simmer the soup for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

 Add the black beans and corn:

Stir in the black beans and corn, cover the pot, and simmer the soup for another 10 minutes on medium-low heat, stirring once. Taste the soup, adjusting the seasoning to taste with salt or more taco seasoning.

 Add the cheese and cilantro:

Turn off the heat. Stir in the shredded cheese and cilantro. Serve topped with your favorite toppings. 

Store leftover taco soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. 


 I love taco soup.  

News?  Daniel Villarreal (LGBTQ Nation) reports:


Viral video footage shows a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer lethally shooting Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman, on Wednesday morning as she tried to drive her car away from ICE agents telling her to “get out of the f**king car” so they can apprehend her. Good, who was married to a woman, ended up crashing her car into an electric pole and other cars. She was later transported from the scene of the shooting and died in the hospital.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed that the officer “fired defensive shots” at Good after she was “attempting to run over” him and other agents “in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called the DHS’ claim “bulls**t,” calling the agent’s actions “reckless” and telling ICE to “get the f**k out of Minneapolis.”

“They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do,” Good’s wife said through tears in footage taken soon after the shooting. “We stopped to videotape [ICE activity], and they shot her in the head.”

Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune, “She was probably terrified,” adding that her daughter has never protested against ICE agents.

“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger added. “She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”


If you believe in prayer, say a prayer for Renee who was murdered by the Chump administration.  Then say a prayer for the country because a lunatic is currently in charge. 

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Wednesday:


Wednesday, January 7, 2025. 'Many' Donald is not just wearing his orange make up again, he also now has pink hair, so 'manly,'  the crazed War Criminal wants to steal $100 billion from US taxpayers and give it to Big Oil, he's also talking about invading Greenland, Megyn Kelly fancies herself a legal mind while most people are amused by the fact that she thinks she has a mind, the Epstein scandal continues and much more.

Sophia Tesfaye has an important column for SALON:


The story the American media is missing about Venezuela right now is not really about Venezuela. It is not about the country’s strongman president Nicolás Maduro, electoral legitimacy, corruption or even oil — at least not in the way Donald Trump pretends it to be. It is about something far more unsettling. The world’s most powerful country is openly asserting the right to invade, occupy and “run” any nation it chooses, and by failing to connect the dots for the American people, the media is helping to normalize Trump’s expansionist project.
What we are watching is not simply another foreign policy crisis; it is the construction of a permission structure for imperialism, built by stenography and deference. Mainstream media coverage of Trump’s attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, has not merely failed to interrogate the Pentagon’s actions, it has actively laundered them, presenting an act of war as a technocratic maneuver, a coup as a “capture” and an invasion as an “operation.” Americans have seen this pattern before, and the consequences were catastrophic.

Like George W. Bush’s regime change operation in Iraq, Trump’s removal of Maduro is premised on a transparent lie. Instead of Bush and Dick Cheney’s weapons of mass destruction, Trump has made a jumble of claims about electoral illegitimacy, corruption and “hemispheric defense” that sound like post-hoc rationalization — and that the administration didn’t care enough to conjure a logical or legal justification for an outcome decided in advance. 
The sense of déjà vu is undeniable. In 2003, the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein, triggering a nearly two decade debacle that killed almost 5,000 American troops, cost more than a trillion dollars, destabilized an entire region and helped incubate movements far more violent than the regime it replaced. At the time, the American press largely went along with the Bush administration, amplifying official claims while marginalizing opposition voices. 

This time, as Semafor reported, the New York Times and the Washington Post knew in advance about Trump’s unprovoked attack and chose to sit on the story, ostensibly to “avoid endangering U.S. troops.” Yet the administration gave no advance notice to Congress. 

The Constitution is unambiguous: Invading a foreign country and kidnapping its president and first lady is an act of war. The president does not have the unilateral authority to launch such actions without congressional approval, which Trump did not seek. That should have been the frame from the first headline to the last chyron. 
Media outlets that avoided describing Saturday’s actions as an act of war are actively assisting the administration in changing the facts after the fact of what the Pentagon dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve. Language matters because language shapes legitimacy. If it isn’t a war, then it doesn’t require debate. If it isn’t an invasion, then it doesn’t violate international law. If it isn’t a coup, then it doesn’t implicate the United States in overthrowing a sovereign government.


Crazy Convict Donald Chump is even more insane than usual. Jillian Ambrose (GUARDIAN) reports:

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said: “That money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States … It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

Trump has said he wants Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to give the US and private companies “total access” to Venezuela’s oil industry. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, is in charge of executing the deal, Trump said, adding that the oil would be taken from ships and sent directly to US ports.

The US will seize control of Venezuela’s crude days after Saturday morning’s attack on Caracas led to the capture of the then president, Nicolás Maduro, and after Trump vowed that US companies would reignite the country’s struggling oil industry.

US oil executives from Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil are expected to meet Trump at the White House on Friday to discuss plans to pour billions of dollars into the industry in Venezuela.


MEIDASTOUCH NEWS touches this topic this morning.



As Ben observes, Donald's plan is that "the taxpayers will subsidize the oil companies to the tune of $100 billion.  So while Donald Trump has ripped away your healthcare, refused to extend the Affordable Care Acts' subsidies, Donald Trump's plan is to make the taxpayers pay $100 billion to fund oil companies going into Venezuela because otherwise they'll lose money."  


Kevin Reed (WSWS) reports:

In interviews and comments to the press, US President Donald Trump followed up the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a US commando raid with mafia-style threats against the country and Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodríguez.

In a phone interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker and related media appearances over the past 48 hours, Trump threatened a “second strike” on Venezuela if newly sworn-in President Delcy Rodríguez does not submit fully to US demands.

“If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike,” he boasted, declaring that regime change and the US decision to “run” a country of 30 million people is “better than what you have right now.” Trump also suggested he had initially expected to have to send in American forces again already.

While making the threats, Trump and his officials also insist that the US is “not at war” with Venezuela and that the operation is a limited action aimed at “security” and “counter-narcotics.” However, the basic facts of the events of Saturday morning expose these claims to be a calculated lie.

The coordinated airstrikes on Caracas and multiple states in Venezuela, the abduction of an elected president on foreign soil, the declaration of a state of emergency and the mobilization of armed forces across the country is a violation of international law and a war crime.

[. . .]

The fact that White House is preparing to guarantee tens of billions of dollars in investment to the Venezuelan oil industry infrastructure to secure agreements with giant American oil corporations—while slashing funding of Medicaid, SNAP and WIC benefits—reveals the financial interests driving the imperialist operation.


To be very clear, this is not just WAR FOR OIL, this is also turning US citizens into wage slaves for oil.  That's what will happen if Chump provides corporate welfare to Big Oil.  The American people, the taxpayers, will be stuck with yet another billion dollar project that they didn't ask for and that they didn't need.

As last year drew to a close, Donald's friends in Congress were begging him to focus on the United States, they were telling him how he was losing support.  And his answer to them?  Invade Venezuela and propose that Big Oil steal 100 billion dollars from US taxpayers.

 


Now he's making threats about other regions as well.  From today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE.

 

 

He is an out of control monster, it is really that simple.  



 

 

 

 

 


Let's move over to Donald Chump's now dead best friend Jeffrey Epstein.  The pedophile and sex trafficker as Donnie's roll dog for years.  And though Chump has minimized the relationship, it did exist and more details are coming out. Sarah Bennett (BILOXI SUN HERALD) reports:

A set of Department of Justice (DOJ) records reportedly includes internal references to President Donald Trump in connection with flight logs from Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet during the 1990s. An email dated January 2020, authored by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, states that Trump appeared on multiple Epstein flight manifests between 1993 and 1996.
Prosecutors previously believed the number was lower. The email cites at least eight flights during the stated period. The document also notes that Trump sometimes traveled with family members and associates.

The email reads, “For your situational awareness, wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump travelled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware), including during the period we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case.”

Maxwell, of course, is Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's partner in the crime of sex trafficking and pedophilia.  Chump had her moved to a cushy prison dubbed Club Fed.  All it took was Ghislaine using the mail in the Florida prison -- that she knew was read before being sent out -- to drop Chump's name into a few letters and all the sudden Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wants to see her.  The same method, remember, that Jeffrey Epstein used right before he died in prison.  After months of speculation following the prison move, Blanche stated last month that he moved her and he moved her because she wasn't safe at the Florida prison.  

So he moved her to a prison she wasn't entitled -- based on the crimes she was convicted -- to be in.  All it took wa sfor her to toss Donald's name out a few times in a few letters after it became obvious in the spring of last year that he wasn't going to release the Epstein files.

And he still hasn't released them.  On that like of transparency and compliance with the law, Sarah Ewall-Wice (DAILY BEAST) reports:


Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday slammed the Justice Department for failing to submit a report to Congress required by the law that forced the release of the files.

He noted in a post that it was “required to include a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, without redactions.”

“What are they trying to hide?” Schumer wrote in a lengthy post on X.

The January 3 deadline for the Justice Department to explain its redactions for the produced documents came and went without a response, the same day the U.S. carried out its strike on Venezuela.



But, hey, useless Chuck took to Twitter!!!! That's almost leadership . . . if you're so desperate you'll accept any performative behavior at all.  You know there millions of Americans who aren't in the Senate and don't have all these legislative powers who manage to do just what Chuck did.  It's a shame Old Man Schumer can't figure out a way to do a little more.

If that's not frustrating to you, maybe you're not paying attention.  Hugh Cameron (NEWSWEEK) delivers that hope-it-doesn'-t-come-true news:

The delayed pace at which the Trump administration is releasing files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein means it could be several years before it meets Congress’s mandate for full transparency.

On Monday, the Justice Department told a court it had released 12,285 files since being compelled to do so on December 19. However, it went on to say that there are “more than 2 million documents” that remain in “various phases of review.”

 

 



Turning to the gutter where racist Megyn Kelly slithers around on her belly.  The woman whose cave-in on the right side of her fact has never been explained wanted to attack Hillary Clinton because that's what obsessed people do.  Hillary fan for president in 2016.  She's since gone on to live her life as a private citizen.  But Megyn is old -- which is another reason she moved from TV to radio -- she's kind of like CBS new news anchor in that regard -- they do the best to fuzz out the face with filters but it doesn't make either of them attractive.  So Meg needed attention and felt that Hillary was her way to go.  Hillary Tweeted about the January 6th insurrection that Chump led five years ago.  That is what happened.  



But Megyn's convinced Chump should sue and argue it's "defamation."  I thought the wack job went to Albany Law School but every time she opens up her mouth and starts making that Eeyore sound -- EE-YAW EE-YAW, it seems like she studied law at  the Orlo School of Hair Design in Albany.  Nothing Hillary said was defaming.

So I'd ignore Megyn normally -- the way so much of the country does.  However, she picked the wrong time.  I'm all for free speech but when the president of the United States is saying you ordered the assassination of someone?  

That's actionable.  

That should result in a lawsuit.  

I'm no fan of Tim Walz and I think he cost us the election and I believe he knows he cost us the election which is why he was so eager to stab Kamala Harris right after the election.  So I don't expect him to grow a spine.  I'm glad he's dropped out of his re-election race because he and his state's problems are a distraction for the party.  I have no problem getting behind a fighter and showing my support.  Timid Tim is not a fighter as his 'debate' (cave) with JD Vance demonstrated.  The worst debate I have ever seen.  JD lied and lied.  Yeah.  I expect that from Republicans.  I expect Democrats to punch back with the truth not to have a panic attack broadcast on live TV.  So the point is that Walz probably doesn't have the guts or backbone to sue Chump.  


But real soon, someone needs to find the backbone to sue him.  He has crossed the line repeatedly.  And you know it's true because Megyn's calling out Hillary and not Chump.  That's how those ridden tramps always behave, they attack others for what their own side is doing.

Here's what Hillary posted that so outraged sunken face Megyn:

Five years ago today, Donald Trump urged his supporters to attack Congress and the Capitol over a proven lie. More than 140 police officers were injured. Trump then pardoned the attackers. He betrayed his oath and his country, and we won't ever forget it.


There's nothing actionable in that.  Contrast Hillary with Chump:


 
That, Little Meggers, is defamation.  Were you an attorney on the Mike Lindell case?  Because they didn't grasp the legal issues either.
 

P


Maybe cosmetologist Meggers can help Chump with is latest problem.  Turns out, as THE DAILY BEAST notes, his latest attempt to bleach his hair has resulted with a portion of it turning pink.


MAGA.  And their ridiculous notions of manhood.  There's a whole story there but no one wants to talk about the underlying gay tones of MAGA so we'll move on.  Chump is the man, of course, who went weeks with a Maxi Pad over one ear.  And now grandma's got pink hair.  It's manly in someone's mind.

So what's going on.  Remember when it happened to Christine on THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE?  Season four, episode nineteen, "Hair" written by Matt Goldman?   As happened to  Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character, the hair can simply get over cooked -- left on too long.  








I hope that's what happened to Chump.  


Because another common way you can use bleach on your hair and end up with pink hair is to many minerals in the hair itself -- that would be copper and iron.  If you have that kind of build up in your hair, you also may have it in your kidneys and you might need dialysis which, remember, Marcia's grandmother has said from day one is what the bruises on Chump's hands are from.


So Donald might have gone to Pete Hegseth's House of Beauty now centrally located in the Pentagon and they may have just left the agent in the hair too long or, again, he may be having issues with too much iron and copper and, if that's in the hair, it can be in the bloodstream as well and get trapped in the kidneys.  Do we want to discuss Chelation therapy?  Maybe another time.


Donald Chump is a trying to destroy our country and our worl.  And it can feel overwhelming dealing with this day after day absolutely.  But grasp that he tried his worst five years ago when he tried to overthrow our country.  And he didn't succeed.  He's not going to succeed this time.  We're fighting back and we're not going to let democracy die on our watch.  


We are stronger than he is, we are smarter than he is.  He's in the grips of his dementia, his body is shutting down before our eyes.  Americans were raised with democracy and that's the system we choose.  Chump is a foreign body that the system will expel.  


And take hope in the knowledge that even his own supporters can wake up.  Note the testimony below.


 

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:


Murray: “The real fight is to ensure we learn the lesson of the January 6th Insurrection. Because there is no reason to think the same insurrectionists—that are now free—and the same President—now bolder than ever in challenging our laws and our Constitution—won’t try, once again, to get their way through threats and through violence.”

Murray: “President Trump’s allies in Congress, to this day, have refused to hang a plaque honoring our Capitol police officers for their sacrifice… Speaker Johnson has turned a plaque that was meant to be proof of their bravery, into proof of his own cowardice.”

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full floor speech***

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, took to the Senate floor, alongside other Senate Democrats, to mark the fifth anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Senator Murray slammed Trump’s blanket pardons of violent criminals who attacked police officers on January 6th and Republican attempts to rewrite history, and discussed the dangers facing American democracy as Trump continues to endorse political violence and spread lies about the 2020 election. Murray also called out Republicans for their continued refusal to honor Capitol Police officers who put their lives on the line and suffered severe injuries protecting Members of Congress on January 6th.  

“The same forces that ignited the insurrection five years ago are still here. The same lies are still being spread about the 2020 election, you just heard some of them, by the same bad faith actors. The same President who told the crowd—just hours before the violent insurrection—that he would march to the Capitol with them is now accusing Democrats of treason, and sharing calls to execute them. And the same violent people—the people who stormed and battered our Capitol Police, the people who brought bats, and knives, and zip ties, the people who left blood and feces, and broken glass littered throughout the halls of this building, they’re walking free today—because President Trump thinks they were the victims,” Murray said on the Senate floor today.

“But no matter how many criminals Trump pardons, no matter how many lies he tells, and no matter how loudly he tells them—no President can rewrite history unless we stand by and let him,” she continued.

“The challenge before us, at this moment, is greater than just fighting for truth and history. It is not enough to make sure we simply remember the truth of the January 6th Insurrection. The real fight is to ensure we learn the lesson of the January 6th Insurrection. Because there is no reason to think the same insurrectionists—that are now free—and the same President—now bolder than ever in challenging our laws and our Constitution—won’t try, once again, to get their way through threats and through violence.”

On President Trump’s first day in office last year, he granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons to over 1,500 people charged with committing crimes in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and commuted the sentences of 14 others, including leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, far-right militias. Among those pardoned by Trump were 169 people who pled guilty to assaulting police officers on January 6th.During the siege of the Capitol that day, over 80 U.S. Capitol Police Officers were assaulted, as well as over 60 officers from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Last January, following Trump’s pardons of violent criminals, Senator Murray introduced and tried to pass a resolution condemning the pardons of individuals who were found guilty of assaulting Capitol Police Officers. Republicans blocked passage of the simple resolution twice. Senator Murray has spoken at length about her experience on January 6th, on lockdown inside the Capitol building while it was being stormed by insurrectionists.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, approximately 1,572 defendants were federally charged with crimes associated with the attack of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. This includes approximately 598 charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents or officers or obstructing those officers during a civil disorder, including approximately 174 defendants charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. As proven in court, the weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds during the January 6th attack include firearms; pepper spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves.

At least 33 pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have now been convicted of, charged with, or arrested for additional crimes since the insurrection, including: child sexual assault, production of child pornography, possession of child pornography, rape, conspiracy to commit murder of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated robbery, reckless homicide, driving under the influence causing death, illegal possession of firearms, domestic violence by strangulation, burglary, vandalism, grand theft, stalking, violation of protective orders, threatening public officials, and drug trafficking.

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered on the Senate floor today, are below:

“Five years ago, my husband and I sheltered in place, right here in this building, and prayed that our lock would hold.

“Five years ago, we had to hunker down in the Capitol as alarms blared, glass shattered, and rioters stormed the halls of this building chanting ‘hang Mike Pence.’

“We heard them just outside the room I was, feet away from this chamber, they were looking for any lawmaker they could find, screaming ‘kill the infidels.’ We felt them bashing against our door trying to get in.

“We held our breath and waited for what seemed like forever. And this time every year—it feels like I am still holding my breath.

“Because I know it wasn’t just my husband and I that were in danger that day and it wasn’t just the windows that were shattered.

“It was our democracy that was under attack, our democracy—and the very idea that we use our voices and our votes in this country, not violence.

“And the same forces that ignited the insurrection five years ago are still here. The same lies are still being spread about the 2020 election, you just heard some of them, by the same bad faith actors.

“The same President who told the crowd—just hours before the violent insurrection—that he would march to the Capitol with them is now accusing Democrats of treason, and sharing calls to execute them.

“And the same violent people—the people who stormed and battered our Capitol Police, the people who brought bats, and knives, and zip ties, the people who left blood and feces, and broken glass littered throughout the halls of this building, they’re walking free today—because President Trump thinks they were the victims.

“On his first day in office Trump pardoned rioters who assaulted officers with pepper spray and metal poles. Trump pardoned people who crushed police with riot shields.

“Trump pardoned an insurrectionist who violently punched, slapped, and swatted police—and even choked one officer to the ground.

“Trump pardoned someone who plunged a stun gun into a Capitol police officer’s neck.

“Trump pardoned those people, and many like them, with no care for how dangerous or violent they were.

“He even let the leader of the Proud Boys out of prison!

“And the story doesn’t end there. Because several people that Trump let out of prison—are now back in jail for other crimes, gun charges, breaking and entering, burglary, fatal drunk driving accidents, child pornography, aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault—even plotting to kill the FBI agents who investigated them.

“Months after Trump pardoned Christopher Moynihan—one of the first rioters to breach the police barricades—he was arrested again for threatening the life of Leader Jeffries.

“Make no mistake, Trump’s mass pardons were a dangerous endorsement of political violence—telling criminals you can beat cops within an inch of their lives, as long as it’s in service to President Trump.

“They are also part of an all-out effort by President Trump and his allies to now rewrite the history of the insurrection of that day.

“President Trump’s Justice Department just took down the public database that laid out thousands of investigations.

“He just put up a website that blames Capitol police for escalating the situation. Seriously—Trump isn’t just siding with the rioters, he is trying to blame our law enforcement.

“And President Trump’s allies in Congress, to this day, have refused to hang a plaque honoring our Capitol police officers for their sacrifice.

“We lost a Capitol Police officer that day. Several others took their lives in the trauma that followed. Capitol Police officers suffered severe injuries—cracked ribs, smashed spinal disks, brain injuries, even the loss of an eye.

“And yet—Speaker Johnson has turned a plaque that was meant to be proof of their bravery, into proof of his own cowardice.

“But no matter how many criminals Trump pardons, no matter how many lies he tells, and no matter how loudly he tells them—no President can rewrite history unless we stand by and let him.

“I, for one, am never forgetting the truth of that day—it is burned into my brain, and I am never letting our country forget it either. This is a battle I have no doubt we can win.

“But the challenge before us, at this moment, is greater than just fighting for truth and history. It is not enough to make sure we simply remember the truth of the January 6th Insurrection. The real fight is to ensure we learn the lesson of the January 6th Insurrection.

“Because there is no reason to think the same insurrectionists—that are now free—and the same President—now bolder than ever in challenging our laws and our Constitution—won’t try, once again, to get their way through threats and through violence.

“Trump has already made clear where he stands on democracy. He made it clear five years ago when he promised to march on the Capitol. He made it clear last year when he pardoned everyone who actually did storm the Capitol. He makes it clear every single day.

“That is why it is incumbent, on all of us in this country, to be just as clear where we stand on democracy—especially when it comes to standing up to Trump.

“Our government—of the people, by the people, for the people—is an amazing accomplishment. But it is not automatic, or inevitable.

“It takes work. It takes people speaking up. It takes Congress listening, and acting. At the end of our day, our democracy is only as strong as our resolve. It is only as enduring as our courage.

“January 6th was a day that tested that resolve. It was a day that tested that courage. Frankly, some people in this body failed that test.

“But five years ago today, as I sheltered in place, steps away from right here, it wasn’t just the locks that held. The courage of our Capitol police held. And, most importantly, the resolve of some leaders to put country before party held.

“To my colleagues, and to the American people: I know we can continue to protect this democracy. But only if we tell the full truth about the threat that we faced five years ago, and the challenges we face today.”

###


The following sites updated:


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