Today is Tuesday, June 7, 2022, two days before the “roof is blown off the House roof,” as Rep. Jamie Raskin has predicted sometime ago about the soon-to-be explosive effects of the January 6 public hearings on this country’s perception of the former president. However, as various news outlets have stated that they will all televise the first hearing on Thursday, propaganda organ Fox News has already announced that it will not cover the proceedings. As Kurt Bardella, a former House Oversight Committee spokesperson said on the Joy Reid program tonight, this decision not to air the most significant proceedings associated with an armed insurrection fomented by a rogue president is a clear example of “journalistic malpractice.” I would definitely not regard Fox News as a “news” medium at all; it’s a propaganda organ featuring the likes of far-right “stars” like Sean Hannity, “Fucker” Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and others who continually peddle division and misinformation to their misguided audience all the damn time. What they are doing on Thursday is truly a disservice to this nation and Fox News executives should be thoroughly condemned for putting on counterprogramming that will deflect from the stunning truths that will place repugnicans in the worst light ever! Shame on them! Their audience will definitely be unserved by this decision not to air the hearings and they will be in the dark concerning the revelations that will emerge from the committee hearings. That is why America is at this horrible juncture in the first place! Fox News’ decision not to air the committee hearings is, sadly, very predictable and cowardly on their chief executive’s part, Rupert Murdoch, who continues to receive tremendous benefits while living in his adopted country. Another possible reason for the network not airing the hearings involves their viewers getting an earful from committee members like Liz Cheney and others as they read texts that Hannity and his Fox colleagues wrote to try to persuade the rogue president to take some action during the ongoing mayhem at the Capitol. “We wouldn’t want to embarrass our Fox News stars with this negative publicity coming from a legitimate investigative panel probing an insurrection against the government,” so sayeth Fox News executives about not airing those hearings.

The hearings, I believe, need a Joseph Welch moment from the Army-McCarthy hearings when this courageous attorney said this to the red-baiting senator from Wisconsin when he attacked an innocent member of Welch’s law firm for being a Communist: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” which became the death knell of this headline-hungry senator’s “witch hunt” against perceived Communists in the U.S. government. The country demands a moment like this to deal a crushing blow to Trumpism, finally, and to prick the exteriors of its soulless adherents. Anyone who still believes this entertainment and propaganda outlet after all of this is a news channel is a Trump supporter, it’s as simple as that! After Googling the historic moment when Welch confronted McCarthy during the hearings, I came across this intriguing fact: the moment when Welch finally upbraided the shameless senator occurred on June 9, 1954. The first January 6 hearings are being televised on June 9. Could we see a parallel here or just a random coincidence? Could it be an example of divine providence?

Today the country heard a powerful and emotional speech delivered at the White House press briefing room by actor Matthew McConaughey as he spoke about the victims of the Uvalde, Texas, massacre. The actor grew up in Uvalde and his address today was especially personal as a native son of Texas. The personable actor called for reforms as part of what he referred to as “gun responsibility.” He urged that the minumum age to buy a rifle be changed from 18 to 21. At one point during the actor’s emotional address, he talked about how one of the young victims could only be identified by her green hightop Converse sneakers. The emotional actor spoke about how the young victim, Maite Rodriguez, wanted to be a marine biologist and even pictured where she wanted to go to school. He asked his wife, Camilla, to show the crowd Maite’s green Converse sneakers with a heart drawn on the right toe. At that point, McConaughey pounded the lectern to stave off getting too overcome with emotion. How can anyone listen to his speech without shedding tears for the tragic victims of a young man’s depravity! He said that those in power have failed to act. McConaughey urged that both parties put aside their differences to address the issue of gun violence. The question after the Oscar winner’s dramatic speech is whether he can shift the partisanship reflected on both sides to real action. At one time he publicly flirted with running for governor in the Lone Star State, but never pursued that path.

McConaughey wrote an op-ed piece in The Austin American–Statesman over the weekend in which he called for stricter gun control in the United States. In his op-ed, he called for background checks, age minimums for gun ownership and mandatory waiting periods before the purchase of assault rifles as measures that could effectively diminish incidences of mass shootings in America. McConaughey also wrote with urgency about the need for more resources dedicated to mental health care. The actor returned to his hometown, where his mother had worked as a schoolteacher, three days after the mass shooting that left 19 children and two adults dead on May 24. In his piece, McConaughey described his personal motivations for weighing in on the debate over gun control, which has been reinvigorated following this tragedy and several others since then: “I am a father, the son of a kindergarten teacher, and an American. I was also born in Uvalde, Texas.” This certainly seems like enough of a reason for this Oscar-winning actor to enter the fray of gun control reform. The actor does not trash the Second Amendment in his op-ed; he urges that “keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people is not only the responsible thing to do, it is the best way to protect the Second Amendment.” Will this very dramatic and moving speech by a well-respected thespian result in action on the part of our cowardly Congress? Only time will tell.

For those of us who are still perplexed about how this country went astray over the last four years or so, then by all means go out and read Ira Shapiro’s dissection of what went wrong with the American experiment in his new book The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America. I began reading this book after seeing it in the library on the new releases shelf the other day. Here’s just a sampling of what Shapiro says in the book about our failed Senate under “Bitch” McConnell.

• “This is the story of the most catastrophic failure of government in American history.”
• “This failure undermined the rule of law and threatened our constitutional rights.”
• It deepened our divisions, pitting red states against blue states, whites against blacks.”
• It endangered our national security, weakening our alliances and strengthening our adversaries.”
• It produced unprecedented economic hardship, throwing millions of hard-working Americans into poverty and despair.”
• It caused many thousands of Americans to die needlessly before their time.”
• It led directly to the insurrection at the Capitol.”
• It was the failure of the United States Senate, from January 2017 to February 2021.”

This harsh assessment of the Senate is contained in the Preface. Shapiro then goes on to list the myriad failures of the Senate under the guidance of one man, Senate Majority Leader [at the time] Mitch McConnell who put selfish goals ahead of country. The author enumerates all of the ways the Senate failed Americans during the Dumpf presidency. This is on the fourth page of the Preface. It is the Senate’s failure to hold Dumpf accountable during two impeachment trials and other outrageous actions that created the situation for Dumpf to invite his supporters to attack the Capitol. Shapiro lays out compelling evidence against McConnell and how he subverted the legislative body when he was in charge. So if this story doesn’t grab you by the lapels, you don’t have to read it. I know it ain’t James Patterson, but it’s an important story nevertheless.

Tomorrow I will be visiting my Long Island friend “Jake” for the day, so I doubt I will be writing my blog then. So I wish you a great Wednesday in advance.

Stay safe and be well.