Today is Sunday, September 11, 2022. Today marks the 21st anniversary of that terrible day in September when hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. There was a loss of nearly 3,000 lives in New York and the reverberations are still felt 21 years later. In honor of those who lost their lives in the three horrific attacks, President Joe Biden commemorated the anniversary at a remembrance event today at the Pentagon, delivering heartfelt remarks that honored those killed there.

This solemn event was covered in an online CNN article by Nikki Carvajal, Jasmine Wright, and Kate Bennett entitled “Biden honors 9/11 victims at Pentagon ceremony: ‘This is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and resolve.'”

Offering words of comfort to the affected families, Biden said, “I know for all those of you who lost someone, 21 years is both a lifetime and no time at all. It’s good to remember. These memories help us heal, but they can also open up the hurt and take us back to that moment when the grief was so raw.” The President delivered his remarks at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

Even as he delivered these healing words to the nation, Biden recalled what the late Queen Elizabeth sent to the American people on September 11, 2001, as a recognition of the overwhelming sorrow felt on that day. Biden said the Queen “pointedly reminded us, quote, ‘Grief is the price we pay for love.'”

In his address, Biden talked about securing American democracy, however avoiding some of the stronger rhetoric that he used just very recently in his speech to the nation ten days ago. He said, “It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then. It’s something we have to do every single day.” Continuing, he said, “So this is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and resolve for each and every American and our devotion to this country.”

Nearly 3,000 innocent souls were wiped out in the 9/11 attacks, which were orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed under orders by then-President, Barack Obama, in 2011. In his speech, Biden also highlighted the assassination of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in a drone strike earlier this year. Biden vowed the U.S. “will not rest, we’ll never forget, we will never give up.”

“And now, Zawahiri can never threaten the American people,” Biden declared.

Before the address, Biden participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon, pausing briefly in front of a ceremonial wreath to touch it and then putting his hand over his heart. He was joined at the event by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris met with family members who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks after arriving at the National September 11 Memorial in New York. Harris, who attended a commemorative service at Ground Zero, also met with first responders like Biden at the Pentagon, according to a White House official.

First Lady Jill Biden spoke today at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in Shanskville, Pennsylvania, where she was joined by her sister, Bonny Jacobs, a flight attendant for United Airlines. As you should recall, it was the brave passengers on Flight 93 heading for the nation’s capital that rushed and overtook their captors on that fateful flight, thus crashing in a field in Pennsylvania instead of the capital.

In her remarks at the Flight 93 National Memorial, the First Lady recognized the fear she felt on 9/11, thinking of her sister before the two were able to get in touch and she knew she was safe.

Stating, “Certain images are seared into our collective memory,” Biden began. “Yet even as we share our grief, that moment affected us all in unique ways. Looking back, we remember the details like a slide under a microscope.”

Biden acknowledged that her sister “hadn’t just lost colleagues” on that awful day. “She had lost friends,” Biden remarked.

In addition to delivering her speech, Biden also walked the Field of Remembrance at the memorial and laid a wreath in honor of the victims.

First Lady Biden also recalled her sister’s pride upon hearing of her fellow flight attendants and passengers who fought back on United Flight 93, “who helped stop the plane from taking an untold number of livers in our nation’s capital.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, herself a former First Lady who was a New York senator at the time of the 9/11 assaults, said Sunday that the day was “indelibly part of my memories.”

In prepared statements made to Dana Bash on today’s edition of “State of the Union,” on CNN, Clinton said that she felt grateful that as a country we could come together during that terrible time. She noted, “We put aside differences. I wish we could find ways of doing that again.”

Clinton opined that it was important to now try to deal with extremism of any kind, “especially when it uses violence to try to achieve political and ideological goals.”

As for stopping one very dangerous homegrown extremist by the name of Donald J. Trump, an editorial in today’s Washington Post states that President Joe Biden’s “central achievement of his presidency” is stopping former President Dumpf.

Columnist David Ignatius wrote on Friday in an editorial, “Some presidents struggle in office to frame their legacy. But for Biden, it’s easy. His core mission from the beginning was to prevent Trump from destroying American democracy.”

Ignatius stressed that Biden has been consistent in his messaging about defeating Dumpf.

Excusing the President’s sometimes verbal miscues, Ignatius mentioned Biden’s remarks in December 2018, when he said, “I am a gaffe machine, but, my God, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth.”

The editorial went on to applaud Biden for his September 1 speech attacking Trump and MAGA Republicans for threatening “the very foundations of our republic.” Here I disagree with acerbic comedian and late-night host Bill Maher who complained about the speech to his fellow panel members on last week’s show. Maher felt that Biden did not go far enough to unify the country in his September 1 address: He felt that Biden needed to call out extremism on the Democratic side as well. As the commentators on The Banter constantly point out, the extremism, as it were, on the left is far less dangerous these days than the extremism on the far right. Those on the far right actually want to destroy democracy unlike their counterparts on the left. So I don’t agree here with Maher about Biden missing a lost opportunity in his national address on September 1. I think he actually misstated the platform that MAGA repugnicans have adopted as “semifascism”; to me, it’s outright fascism. Other commentators here agree with me over this assessment.

In conclusion, Ignatius remarked, “But as Trump’s political death spiral accelerates, Biden’s presidential legacy is nearly complete.”

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for the country under the former Traitor-in-Chief, we finally have Democratic Senator Tim Kaine actually verbalizing why Dumpf stored so many classified documents at his Florida golf resort: They were being used as a “get out of jail free card,” Kaine stated in a CNN interview.

Kaine’s comments appear in an online Business Insider article by Taylor Ardrey entitled, “Trump hoarded classified documents ‘as a get out of jail free card,’ says Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.”

On Saturday, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that the reason former President Dumpf had highly classified documents stored at his Florida estate was to later use them as leverage in any potential prosecution.

Kaine responded, “My gut tells me the reason that Donald Trump took all this classified information – I’m on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee. I spend a lot of time in secure Senate facilities – I know what this information is like.” Telling CNN his opinions on the matter, Kaine later elaborated, “The reason Trump took this with him to Florida was probably to try to either sell it or have it as a get out of jail free card.”

“These secrets are safe under Biden,” Kaine offered. He said that “It’s really important that we impose accountability for this.”

The Department of Justice is investigating whether Dumpf was wrong to store government records in his home. I would think reasonable people would conclude that this was indeed wrong on his part. The agency claimed that there may be more missing documents that they have yet to recover.

Even Dumpf’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen indicated last month on CNN that his erstwhile boss would use the documents as a “bargaining chip.”

Cohen went on to say that if Dumpf faced criminal prosecution, he would go on to threaten, “there’s 20 of my loyal supporters out there, you don’t know who they are, but we will release the information to Russia, to Iran, to whoever it might be.” Dumpf would certainly reveal his traitorous colors at this juncture, wouldn’t you think?

Anyway, it’s getting late here. I’m fading since I didn’t feel too well today. I stayed in for most of the day and that’s unusual for me. The weather didn’t help: it was damp and cloudy, ideal weather for our 9/11 commemoration, don’t you think?

So have a good week.

Stay safe and be well.