November 16, 1995: The Gingrich Tantrum

November 16, 1995: President Bill Clinton's victory in the federal government shutdown is sealed when the New York Daily News prints a front-page cartoon, showing the Speaker of the House, and the leader of the Republican Party's move to make drastic cuts in the federal budget, as a "cry baby."

After the failure of his health care initiative in 1994, Clinton saw his Democratic Party battered in the midterm elections, with the Republicans taking both houses of Congress. Bob Dole, from Russell, Kansas, regained the office of Senate Majority Leader that he had held in 1985 and 1986, having been the Minority Leader from 1987 to 1994.

And Gingrich, a Pennsylvania native who moved to the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Georgia to teach at a college, and was first elected to Congress in 1978 and used fiery rhetoric to get into the Republican Party's leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989, became the Speaker of the House.

Dole was considered mean, a reputation he got in his 1976 Vice Presidential debate with Walter Mondale, and deepened in his 1988 Presidential run. But, politically speaking, he was still a center-right candidate, willing to compromise for the greater good of the country. Gingrich was not: He was frequently called a "firebrand" and a "bombthrower."

Like most politicians, especially Republicans, he wanted to balance the federal budget. But his plan severely cut social services -- and also seriously cut taxes, especially on the wealthy. This didn't work when Ronald Reagan was President in the 1980s, and actually created the harsh economic conditions that led to Clinton's election in 1992. As we have since seen, it didn't work in 2001, and it didn't work in 2017. It would not have worked in 1995.

Every year, the federal budget takes effect on October 1. To put it another way: "Fiscal Year 1996" ran from October 1, 1995 to September 30, 1996. If no deal between Congress and the President is in place by October 1, they can pass a "continuing resolution," or "CR": For the length of the resolution, the proportions of the previous fiscal year continue.

But Clinton and the Republicans controlling Congress couldn't reach a deal by September 30. So they passed a CR that ran until November 13. But the Republicans refused to pass a new budget or a new CR by November 14. So, at 12:00 Midnight on November 13, the federal government shut down, because it was not legally permitted to spend any more money. People were still working for it, but without pay.

And the Republicans went before the media and said it was Clinton's fault. Except Clinton also went before the media, and pointed out that he was still willing to make a deal, and the Republicans weren't. Finally, he called Dole and Gingrich into the Oval Office. So often willing to compromise on things, seemingly desperate to get re-elected, not wanting to be a one-term President like 3 of the last 4 (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush), but angering many in his own party, Clinton stiffened his spine, and told them, "I don't care if I go down to 5 percent in the polls. If you want that budget signed into law, you're going to have to get somebody else behind this desk."

For once, Clinton held his ground. And polls showed that more people supported his stance than the Republicans' stance. Once the Daily News printed that front page, and blow-ups of it were displayed on the floor of the very House of which Gingrich was Speaker -- by a Representative from Brooklyn, later to be Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer -- their approval rating plummeted. It has never again reached its 1995 height.

Clinton had invited Dole and Gingrich to go with him to the funeral of the assassinated Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin -- certainly, a gesture of respect, if not reconciliation. But the article accompanying the cartoon alleged that, on the flight back, Gingrich wanted to talk about the budget impasse, Clinton didn't, and Clinton made Gingrich get off Air Force One at the back entrance, and Gingrich got upset about these developments.

As comedian Dick Gregory told Clinton at an NAACP convention the following year, "He got upset because you made him a Negro!" Everybody in the audience laughed at the reference to black people being segregated to the backs of buses up until 1955. Clinton couldn't have made that joke himself, but Gregory could.

Did Clinton "make" Gingrich get off at the back of the plane? Was it true? Only Clinton and Gingrich know for sure. The problem was, given Gingrich's own actions over the 17 years he'd served in Congress to that point, the story was completely believable. He had lived by the persona of a guy who tapped into people's emotions, and now, politically, he was dying by them.

Leading an opposition and leading a majority are two very different things, and while some skills cross over, some do not. Gingrich's tantrums had worked pretty well when he was in the opposition to House Democrats like his predecessors as Speaker, Jim Wright of Texas and Tom Foley of Washington State. They did not work when he had a position of power, and they certainly didn't work against a political talent like Clinton. It was like, "Welcome to the major leagues, Newt."

That front page became the Daily News' 2nd-best-known ever, trailing only the October 30, 1975 front page concerning another budget mess, that of New York City, when President Gerald Ford refused to use federal money to bail the City out. The News' front page read, "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." That headline probably cost Ford the State of New York in the 1976 election, and thus the election itself. Having brought down a President, now, 20 years later, the News was bringing down a Speaker. Not yet, though: Time magazine would name Gingrich its Man of the Year for 1995.

Finally, on November 19, the Republicans caved. And when the general election campaign got underway, the Democrats aired commercials showing Dole and Gingrich together so many times, it began to look like Gingrich was Dole's running mate, instead of his actual choice, Jack Kemp, former pro quarterback and Congressman from New York.

Once the Democrats had their convention, Clinton and his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, solidified their lead, and Dole and Kemp never really challenged them. Dole didn't run a bad campaign, but once Clinton won the battle over the budget, Dole never had a chance, unless there was a new "Clinton scandal" bigger than anything that had happened to that point.

What no one yet knew was that the government shutdown, at the same time that it was securing Clinton's win, was also setting the stage for such a scandal: Among the volunteers working in the White House during the government shutdown was a young woman named Monica Lewinsky.

But the public's backlash against the Republicans' effort to impeach Clinton led to the Democrats gaining seats in the 1998 Congressional elections. Gingrich's marital infidelities had been at least as notorious as Clinton's, and the Republicans didn't care. But now, they cared: To the conservative movement, everything is acceptable except losing, and Gingrich was forced to step down, not just from the Speakership but from Congress.

*

November 16, 1995 was a Thursday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 5 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Golden State Warriors, 120-97 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Indiana Pacers, 89-80 at the Orlando Arena.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 115-87 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Robert Horry led all NBA players on the night, with 40 points.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies, 103-98 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. (The Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2001.)

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 105-102 at the Rose Garden in Portland. (It's now named the Moda Center.)

There were 7 games played in the NHL, and all 3 of the New York Tri-State Area teams were in action:

* The New Jersey Devils, the Stanley Cup holders, played the Boston Bruins to a tie, 2-2 at the new FleetCenter in Boston. (It's now named the TD Garden.) The Meadowlands Marauders came from 2-0 down in the 3rd period, to salvage a point thanks to goals from Ricard Persson and Valeri Zelepukin.

* The New York Rangers weren't so lucky: They lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-1 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The New York Islanders weren't even that lucky: They lost to the Los Angeles Kings, 9-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Wayne Gretzky only got 1 of the Kings' goals.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-3 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-4 at the ThunderDome in St. Petersburg, Florida. (It's now named Tropicana Field. The following season, the Lightning moved into what's now named the Amalie Arena.) Former Islander Benoit Hogue scored the winner, just 32 seconds into overtime.

* The Florida Panthers and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 2-2 at the Miami Arena.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-1 at the Kiel Center in St. Louis. (It's now named the Enterprise Center.) 

November 8, 1994: The Gingrich Revolution

November 8, 1994: Election Day is a repudiation of the Democratic Party, in particular of President Bill Clinton, his now-withdrawn health care reform plan, and his Assault Weapons Ban. The Republican Party gains 52 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, giving them control of that body for the 1st time in 40 years, and making Newt Gingrich of Georgia the Speaker. It also gains 9 seats in the U.S. Senate, giving them control of that body for the 1st time in 8 years, returning Bob Dole of Kansas to the office of Senate Majority Leader.

In New York State, Mario Cuomo is defeated for a 4th term as Governor by Peekskill Mayor George Pataki. In Texas, George W. Bush, son of the most recent Republican President, is elected Governor, defeating the State's 1st female Governor, Ann Richards. Bush's brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, narrowly loses to Governor Lawton Chiles of Florida. I suspect that, had it not been for the Savings & Loan Scandal, another brother, Neil Bush, would have run for Governor of Colorado.

Among the new Republicans elected to the Senate: Bill Frist of Tennessee, later the Senate Majority Leader; Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who ran for President in 2012 and 2016; Mike DeWine of Ohio, later elected Governor; and Representative Olympia Snowe of Maine, who was married to John "Jock" McKernan, then wrapping up his 2nd and last term as Governor.

In addition, Senators Richard Shelby of Alabama and Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado switched parties to become Republicans. Shelby had previously called himself "the most conservative member of the Senate"; and Campbell, then the only Native American in either house of Congress (a member of the Cheyenne tribe), was more of a Western libertarian than a traditional conservative, but favored gun rights. So neither switch was a big surprise, although they didn't exactly show courage by jumping ship after the election.

Gingrich knew that it wasn't enough to be against Clinton, or against Democrats in general: You had to give the voters something to vote for. He had a 10-point "Contract With America," which includes some reforms of Congress itself, including some items that Democrats were willing to work with them to pass, if with some minor adjustments. But some were drastic, and opposed by most Americans.

The backlash that hit him even before he could take office as Speaker led to him, with Christmas coming up, to being compared with two of the villains of pop-culture Christmas: Time compared him to Ebenezer Scrooge of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, while Newsweek compared him to the title character of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

As promised, all 10 items passed the House in the 1st 100 days of Republican control. And 9 of them passed the Senate. But some of these, including a radical reform of the nation's welfare laws, and a significant tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, were vetoed by Clinton.

The 1 item that passed the Senate, but not by enough, was an Amendment to the Constitution requiring that the federal budget be balanced. On its face, this seemed like a good idea. The devil was in the details: Because Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had run the federal budget deficit so high in their 12 consecutive years in the White House, balancing the budget would have required significant spending cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, educational spending, and environmental spending. The Republicans were fine with all of that. But they weren't willing to cut spending on new military projects, and Clinton and the Democrats called them out on that.

In the end, requiring a 2/3rds "supermajority" of both houses on Congress -- 290 votes in the House, and 67 in the Senate, instead of a simple majority of 218 and 51, respectively -- the Amendment fell 1 vote short in the Senate.

One Republican voted against it: Mark Hatfield of Oregon. As a former Governor of a State whose budget was already constitutionally required to be balanced -- a lot easier, since States have far lesser, and lesser-ranging, expenses than the country at large, but by no means easy -- Hatfield understood that the Amendment would have been dangerous. It would have cast millions of people into poverty, made things worse for those already poor, and might even have killed people.

And so, the battle was on: Gingrich would lead a Congressional campaign for 1996 on a revised Contract with America, while Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas would be the Republican nominee for President, supporting it; and Clinton would run for re-election, calling the Republican proposal "the Contract On America," and making the increasingly unpopular Gingrich "Dole's running mate," no matter who Dole ultimately selected to be his Vice Presidential nominee. Gingrich's successes in early 1995 led Time magazine to name him its Man of the Year.

(Dole chose Jack Kemp, former pro quarterback, an 18-year Congressman where he became one of the champions of tax-cutters, an unsuccessful Presidential candidate in 1988, and President Bush's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.)

In the end, Clinton was re-elected solidly over Dole, but the Democrats were unable to take back either house of Congress. Over the course of his 2nd term, even as the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton over things that were none of their, or the American people's, concern, failing to get conviction and removal, they were forced to work with him. In 1997, the federal budget was balanced. Clinton, Gingrich, Dole, and Dole's successor as Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, could all legitimately claim some credit for that.

But the Republicans' effort to remove Clinton from office angered many Americans, and, incredibly unusual for a party in its 6th straight year of holding the White House, the Democrats actually gained seats in the 1998 Congressional election. Gingrich resigned later that week, pressured into it not because of his own personal and legal failings, in each case worse than Clinton's, but because he had failed as a leader. The conservative movement will accept anything except failure.

The evangelical takeover of the Republican Party became complete with the election of George W. Bush, son of the former President, in 2000. Like Richard Nixon before him, Gingrich bided his time, mended some fences, supported Republican candidates wherever he could, and built a new constituency. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President, and Gingrich ran for the Republican nomination to beat him for re-election in 2012. He won some Primaries, but his personal scandals came back to haunt him, and he lost too many Primaries to continue.

At the age of 79, he is now seen as an elder statesman in the Party, but, as long as Donald Trump is its emotional leader, the last true "ideas man" in the Republican Party has no place in directing its course.

UPDATE: As of the 2024 election, no Republican freshman elected to the House in 1994 is still in it. But 2 Democrats elected then are: Zoe Lofgren of California and Lloyd Doggett of Texas. Roger Wicker was elected as a Republican from Mississippi, and was elected to the Senate in 2008, and still serves, making him the last remaining "Newtoid."

*

November 8, 1994 was a Tuesday. The baseball players were on strike, and the season would have been over by this point, anyway. The NHL players were locked out, meaning that 2 of the "Big Four" sports in North America were stopped cold due to management's unfairness to the players. And football was in midweek. But there were 5 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 117-113 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 100-98 at the Gund Arena (now the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse) in Cleveland.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 126-112 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. Joe Dumars scored 40 points.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Dallas Mavericks, 115-107 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas. Jim Jackson scored 37 points for the Mavs, but the Nugs won thanks it part to 28 points from Rodney Rogers.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Miami Heat, 121-114 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

October 3, 2023: The Ousting of Speaker Kevin McCarthy

October 3, 2023: Kevin McCarthy, a Republican representing the 20th District of California, including his hometown of Bakersfield, is removed from the office of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. It is the 1st time a Speaker had ever been removed by his own caucus, and only the 3rd time it had ever been attempted.

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

The Republicans had gained a slim majority in the Congressional elections of 2022, seemingly elevating McCarthy to his dream job. First elected to Congress in 2006, and joining the Republicans' House Leadership after the 2010 elections, and was in line for the office.

But there were 19 Republicans in the House, all of them beholden to rejected former President Donald Trump and deniers of the 2020 Presidential election result, who had said they would never vote for McCarthy for Speaker under any circumstances. Not that they would cross over and vote for the Democratic Party's new Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, a black man from Brooklyn; but that they would try to elect one of their own.

Since they didn't have the numbers to do that, they decided to extract concessions from McCarthy: Choice places on House Committees, promises to do witch-hunt investigations of President Joe Biden and other Democrats, and so on.

And so, on January 3, 2023, when the House gathered to elect its Speaker, all the Democrats voted for Jeffries, and not all the Republicans voted for McCarthy. Jeffries finished 1st, but not with a majority. McCarthy finished 1st among Republicans, but not with a majority. A 2nd ballot was conducted that day, with the same result.

Many observers, including myself, remembered an episode of the NBC drama The West Wing, set at a deadlocked Democratic Convention, with political operative Leo McGarry (played by John Spencer) telling the campaign managers of the 3 remaining Presidential candidates, none of whose bosses could get a majority of delegates but none would give in, "One night of this is great theater. Two, and we look like idiots."

The ballots kept coming, and McCarthy still couldn't get a majority. So he began "giving away the store." He made concession after concession to the "Never Kevins," including the scrapping of the rule that said that it would take 5 Representatives to file a motion to remove the Speaker: Now, it would take only 1. In other words, any single member of the House, including some of the craziest right-wingers ever to sit in it, had the chance to extort McCarthy.

On the 13th ballot, he was still 5 votes short. McCarthy went over to talk to 1 of the last 5, Matt Gaetz of Florida, a man under criminal investigation for child trafficking -- no joke -- and Gaetz just pointed his finger at McCarthy, as if to lecture him.

Matt Gaetz

At this point, Mike Rogers of Alabama couldn't take it any longer, and walked over toward Gaetz, and was physically restrained by Richard Hudson of North Carolina. A 14th ballot was taken, and still, Gaetz wouldn't give in. Meanwhile, every time a ballot began, and a Democrat nominated Jeffries, a chant of "Ha-keem! Ha-keem! Ha-keem!" went up.

Finally, shortly after Midnight on January 7, a 15th ballot was held. Gaetz and the last 5 holdouts voted "Present," rather than for any particular challenger. That meant that McCarthy only had to get a majority of those who actually voted for a candidate, and he now had it, 215-214, instead of the 218 he thought he would need.

No Speaker has ever had so little leverage. Ali Vitali of MSNBC said that, now, every single Republican member can hold whatever McCarthy wants to do hostage for their own purposes. One Facebook poster I saw wrote, "Kevin McCarthy sold his soul and only got a t-shirt that says I'VE BEEN TO MAR-A-LAGO." (Trump's Palm Beach, Florida estate.)

And then, January 10, the House Republicans, "led" by McCarthy, voted to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. Now, who's trying to "defund the police"?

The Republicans had campaigned on reducing inflation, reducing crime, and increasing border protection. They didn't produce bills to do any of those things. They spent the entire year running investigations of Hunter Biden, the President's son, who -- unlike Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner -- did not work in his father's Administration, and had nothing to do with his father's policies.

Meanwhile, a budget for Fiscal Year 2024 had to pass by September 30. There was nearly a government shutdown. But McCarthy worked with Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and averted it. Somehow, McCarthy got enough Republicans to join with the Democrats that Jeffries put together to add up to 218 votes. The price, though, was no new funding for Ukraine in its war of defense against Russia, which the Republicans, still the party of Trump, still owned by Russia, wouldn't have voted for under any circumstances.

It was too much for Gaetz, who wanted absolutely no deals with Biden and the Democrats. On October 3, he filed a motion to vacate the Speaker's office, and it passed. There were some suggestions that the Democrats try to "save McCarthy," for the fear that the next Republican Speaker would be even worse. Instead, the Democrats rolled the dice, thinking that McCarthy didn't deserve to be saved, and that, maybe, just maybe, enough Republicans who weren't beholden to Trump might cross over and vote for Jeffries as the next Speaker. None voted to sustain McCarthy.

The joke was too easy, and came quickly: "If you turn up your base too loud, it can destroy your speaker."

McCarthy was Speaker for just under 9 months -- almost the average length of a human pregnancy. And yet, these Republicans, who proudly declare themselves to be "pro-life," gave the McCarthy Speakership a "late-term abortion."

Patrick McHenry of North Carolina was appointed Speaker Pro Tempore, to serve until a Speaker could be elected for the rest of the term, until January 3, 2025. His first action was to kick Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi of California out of the office that McCarthy had left for her -- while Pelosi was all the way across the country, attending the funeral of her fellow San Franciscan, Senator Dianne Feinstein. It was an incredibly petty move, the kind that Trump probably loved.

It took 22 days for the Republicans to agree on a new Speaker. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who voted to de-certify the 2020 Presidential election, couldn't get 217 votes. Nor could Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the leaders of the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, and a former wrestling coach at Ohio State University who looked the other way on evidence of abuse in his program. Nor could Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who, during the 2022 Congressional election, posted a video on Twitter that showed him firing a fully automatic machine gun with the caption "#FIREPELOSI."

Finally, on October 25, they elected James Michael "Mike" Johnson of Louisiana, 51. He also supported overturning the 2020 Presidential election, and had a record as a "Christian nationalist," making him an extremist on issues relating to women, gay people and racial minorities. In other words, by refusing to "save" McCarthy, the Democrats allowed the next Speaker to be somebody noticeably worse. As the old saying goes, the Democratic Party never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Nevertheless, in 2024, Johnson did work with Biden and Schumer to get some things done to help the country. This angered some of the Republican hardliners, including Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who filed a motion to vacate the Speaker's chair. This time, however, Johnson, perhaps smarter than McCarthy, found enough common ground with Jeffries that Jeffries was willing to "save him." After all, it's not like Jeffries himself was going to become Speaker -- not without another full Congressional election, anyway.

*

October 3, 2023 was a Tuesday. Football was in midweek. The NBA and NHL seasons hadn't started yet. But the Major League Baseball Playoffs got underway, with all 4 Wild Card Series starting:

* In the American League, the Minnesota Twins beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-1 at Target Field in Minneapolis. This was the 1st postseason game won by the Twins in 19 years. The next day, they won again, taking the best-2-out-of-3 series, their 1st postseason series win in 21 years.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-0 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Attendance: 19,704. It was the lowest attendance for an MLB postseason game in 104 years, since Game 7 of the 1919 World Series.

Rays fans didn't show up in their stupid little stadium, but they did show up online, claiming that it was in the middle of a workday. Well, so was the Twins' game, and they were in cold Minnesota, and their attendance was 38,450, a full house and double the Rays' attendance. The next day, the Rangers completed the sweep, and the Rays got 20,198 fans.

* In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Miami Marlins, 4-1 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadlephia.

* And the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-3 at American Family Field in Milwaukee.

May 31, 1989: The Fall of Speaker Jim Wright

May 31, 1989: The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Jim Wright of Texas, resigns his post, which he had held for the last 2 years. He also resigns the seat in Congress, representing Fort Worth, Texas, to which he was first elected in 1954. The reason? He used bulk purchases of his book, Reflections of a Public Man, to earn speaking fees in excess of the maximum amount allowed by a Congressional ethics resolution.

That's it. No actual crime. Nobody died. Nobody got hurt. Nobody's rights -- civil or human -- were violated. As he admitted in his resignation speech: "Have I made mistakes? Oh, yeah, I've made a lot of mistakes, mistakes in judgement." But, apparently, some people thought he had to resign over it.

Leading the charge against Wright and his ethics violations was a feisty young Republican Congressman, originally from Pennsylvania, but representing a district in Georgia. His name was Newt Gingrich, and he, too, would become Speaker... and have to resign, in part due to ethics violations, including (but hardly limited to) using his position to increase sales of a video class he was "teaching," an up-to-date version of the very thing he used to tar Wright as "the least ethical Speaker of the House in the nation's history." He wasn't, but Gingrich was.

Gingrich would be succeeded as Speaker in 1999 by Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois. He resigned after the Republicans lost the majority in the 2006 elections. He would later go to prison for what would once have been quaintly called morals charges.

He was succeeded as the Republicans' House Leader by John Boehner of Ohio. He became Speaker after the election of 2010. He resigned in 2015, not because he'd done anything illegal (that we knew of), but because he'd lost control of his own caucus.

He was succeeded as the Republicans' House Leader, and as Speaker, by Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had been the Republican nominee for Vice President in 2012, under Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. He decided not to run for re-election in 2018, not because he'd done anything illegal (that we knew of), but because he thought his Party would lose control of Congress -- correctly, as it turned out. He was succeeded as the Republicans' House Leader by Kevin McCarthy of California.

UPDATE: When the Republicans regained the majority in 2022, it took 15 votes of their caucus to confirm McCarthy as Speaker, and he got forced out after only 9 months, in favor of Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Wright doesn't sound so bad now, does he? He would go on to write more books, and teach at Texas Christian University in his native Fort Worth. In 2014, at the age of 91, he was denied the right to vote in a local election, because of the unconstitutional voter-ID law that the Tea Party-dominated Texas legislature had passed. He died the next year, one of the last surviving people to have been in the motorcade through Dallas when President Kennedy was killed half a century ago.

*

May 31, 1989 was a Wednesday. German soccer star Marco Reus was born.

Football was out of season. The NHL season had ended 5 days before, when the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup, beating the Montreal Canadiens in the Finals. The NBA Playoffs were in the Conference Finals. The Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls, 94-85 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. The Los Angeles Lakers had already completed a sweep of the Phoenix Suns. In the Finals, the Pistons swept the Lakers.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-5 at Yankee Stadium. Andy Hawkins, not yet a Yankee washout, outpitched Steve Trout, former Yankee washout. Both had previously been effective pitchers for other teams.

Don Mattingly went 4-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-2 with 3 walks and 3 stolen bases. Dave Winfield missed the entire season due to a back injury. Rookie Ken Griffey Jr. went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Chris Speier not only went 0-for-5 for the Giants, but his mishandling of a Mookie Wilson grounder in the top of the 10th inning allowed Keith Miller and Kevin Elster to score the winning runs. This made Randy Myers, despite a blown save, the winning pitcher, in relief of Bob Ojeda.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dave Parker hit a home run to put the A's ahead in the top of the 10th inning. But in the bottom of the 10th, the Sox tied it, and then former Yankee catcher Rick Cerone singled Ellis Burks home with the winning run.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 8-5 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Barry Bonds went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the California Angels, 4-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount went 0-for-1 with 3 walks. Paul Molitor went 2-for-3.

* The Houston Astros beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Minnesota Twins were leading the Kansas City Royals, 7-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City, when the umpires stopped the game due to rain. The game was called, making the Twins the winners. George Brett did not play.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 1-for-3 with an RBI.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 9-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

April 7, 1995: The Republicans' Contract With America

April 7, 1995: Not quite 100 days -- 94, to be exact -- into Republican control of Congress, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, asks the major TV networks for time to discuss his Party's newly-implemented "Contract With America" -- as if he were the President, addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House.

They gave him the time. The photo above shows Gingrich at the Speaker's Chair in the House of Representatives chamber, in front of an American Flag. His actual speech was in the Speaker's office in the U.S. Capitol Building, although he did have gold curtains flanking an open window, as the Oval Office often has.

During the midterm election campaign in the preceding Summer and Autumn, Gingrich had promised to bring 10 bills to the House floor for a vote -- not that they would become law, not even that they would pass the House, just that they would come to a vote. He called it "The Contract With America." It worked: The Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress, and nearly every member, newly-elected or re-elected, who was no better than a toss-up to win when calendar year 1994 began now owed Gingrich his job, and, therefore, his loyalty.

So, all 10 bills did pass the House. Some turned out to be inconsequential, mere feel-good items, meaning more to the Republican Congressmen than to the American people. A couple were signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Clinton also vetoed a couple. Some were stopped in the Senate, or amended to the point where they no longer resembled the sweeping legislation that Gingrich conceived of them as being.

Most notable was an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, requiring a balanced federal budget. And, since Gingrich insisted on tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, and refused to cut spending on the U.S. Department of Defense, a balanced budget would have required deep cuts in spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and environmental protection -- things that angered many middle-of-the-road Americans.

The proposed Amendment got the necessary 2/3rds supermajority in the House (290 votes, instead of the usual majority of 218), but failed by 1 vote in the Senate (getting 66 out of 67, rather than the usual majority of 51). Had it gotten the 67th vote, it then would have gone to the States: A majority vote for it in three-quarters of their legislatures, 38 out of 50, would have made it a part of the Constitution of the United States.

That 1 Senate vote to stop it came from Mark Hatfield, Republican of Oregon. A former Governor, he knew how hard it is to balance a budget, even when you don't have to protect things like Social Security. The conservative movement vowed to run a candidate much to his right in the next Primary. Instead, he retired, and the seat has been held by Democrat Ron Wyden ever since.

The most significant part of what Clinton called "the Contract On America" was a budget with deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. He vowed to veto it, and he did, leading to an epic showdown in the Autumn of 1995. Between that, and the Balanced Budget Amendment, the Contract has to be viewed, then as now, as a disappointment at best, and a failure at most.

By airing print and TV ads making it look as though the Republican nominee for President, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, had made Gingrich, rather than former Congressman and football player Jack Kemp, his running mate, Clinton was easily re-elected in 1996. But it was a personal victory, without enough "coattails" to win back a majority in either house of Congress.

In 1997, Clinton, Gingrich, and the new Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, negotiated a balanced budget, one based on the economic growth brought about by Clinton's 1993 tax increase and a streamlining of the Department of Defense, and so the social-spending cuts weren't necessary.

By the end of the 2000s, thanks to the Republicans controlling the Presidency and the Congress for most of the decade, the budget deficit was high enough to make Gingrich -- and Ronald Reagan -- look like actual fiscal conservatives. It has begun to come down again because a liberal Democratic President named Barack Obama got things under control.

And Gingrich? After resigning not just as Speaker, but from Congress completely, in disgrace in 1998, he returned to the public eye by running for President in 2012, and made a big fool of himself all over again. He has often claimed to be a historian, but instead of becoming what he called "a transitional figure in history," he'd probably be better off if history just plain forgot him. Don't bet on it.

*

April 7, 1995 was a Friday. Baseball was in Spring Training, delayed due to the resolution of the Strike of '94. Football was out of season. There were 9 games in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, 107-92 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Boston Celtics beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia 76ers, 91-81 at the Boston Garden.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Washington Bullets, 98-93 at the USAir Arena (formerly the Capital Centre) in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Indiana Pacers, 102-90 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Orlando Magic, 104-94 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 97-88 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 111-94 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 113-90 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Cedric Ceballos led all scorers on the night with 36 points.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Houston Rockets, 127-109 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon.

And there were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat their arch-rivals, the New York Rangers, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Detroit Red Wigs beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Vancouver Canucks, 7-4 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Calgary Flames beat the Los Angeles Kings at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* The Dallas Stars beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 2-0 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (now the Honda Center).

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-0 at the San Jose Arena (now the SAP Center).

January 7, 2023: The 15th Ballot for Speaker Kevin McCarthy

January 7, 2023: Kevin McCarthy, a Republican representing the 20th District of California, including his hometown of Bakersfield, is elected the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives -- on the 15th ballot.

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

Electing the Speaker, and swearing in the members of the House for a new term, usually happens on January 3 of odd-numbered years, although the outgoing Congress may pass a law setting up a different date, for various reasons. This time, the 1st ballot was, indeed, held on January 3.

But it usually only takes 1 ballot to do it: The members of the majority party choose their nominee, and he gets more votes than the person that the members of the minority party choose as their nominee, and that's it. This time, the majority party couldn't agree.

McCarthy, born in Bakersfield in 1965, was first elected to Congress in 2006, and joined the Republicans' House Leadership after the 2010 elections, so he was on the rise quickly. He became House Majority Whip, the Number 3 ranking in the majority party. He became House Majority Leader, the Number 2 man, in mid-2014, when Eric Cantor of Virginia lost his primary for re-election and resigned early. When the Democrats regained control of the House in 2018, he became House Minority Leader, following the retirement of former Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

He was determined to bring his Party back into the majority, as he despised the Democrats' House Leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. On August 1, 2021, he was the keynote speaker of the 44th annual Statesmen's Dinner hosted by the Tennessee Republican Party in Nashville. With Pelosi leading the House, Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York as Senate Majority Leader, and Democrat Joe Biden as President, McCarthy called America a "country in crisis" during his speech, and said, "I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel... It’ll be hard not to hit her with it."

He was cheered by the 1,400 people in attendance. But Hakeem Jeffries of New York, then the Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus (their Number 3), wrote on Twitter, "Violence against women is no laughing matter. Apologize." McCarthy did not apologize. His statement looked worse when, 8 days before the next Congressional election, an assailant broke into Pelosi's San Francisco home, shouting "Where's Nancy?" and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer.

McCarthy made bold predictions about a "red wave" that would sweep the Republicans into control of both houses of Congress, guided by revulsion against the Democrats on the issues of crime and inflation.

What he did not anticipate was that, guided by revulsions against the Republicans for standing by disgraced former President Donald Trump, anger at the Supreme Court's overturning of abortion rights, and generally being okay with the way that Biden, Pelosi and Schumer were running the country, the red wave turned into a trickle. The Republicans barely took control of the House, with only a 5-vote majority; and the Democrats actually gained 1 seat in the Senate.

And to rub it in further, Pelosi announced her retirement as Speaker, although she would remain in the House. So the Democrats elected an all-younger leadership, and it would be Jeffries, as the new House Minority Leader, who would be handing the gavel over to whoever the Republicans chose as Speaker.

Except that there was no guarantee that it would be McCarthy. There were 19 Republicans in the House, all of them deniers of the 2020 Presidential election result, who had said they would never vote for him for Speaker under any circumstances. Not that they would cross over and vote for Jeffries, a black man from Brooklyn; but that they would try to elect one of their own. Since they didn't have the numbers to do that, they decided to extract concessions from McCarthy: Choice places on House Committees, promises to do witch-hunt investigations of Biden and other Democrats, and so on.

And so, on January 3, when the House gathered to elect its Speaker, all the Democrats voted for Jeffries, and not all the Republicans voted for McCarthy. Jeffries finished 1st, but not with a majority. McCarthy finished 1st among Republicans, but not with a majority. A 2nd ballot was conducted that day, with the same result.

The next day, the New York Daily News, citing McCarthy and the newly-elected George Santos, who told some absolutely ridiculous lies to win a district on New York's Long Island, had a front page that summed up the situation.

Many observers, including myself, remembered an episode of the NBC drama The West Wing, set at a deadlocked Democratic Convention, with political operative Leo McGarry (played by John Spencer) telling the campaign managers of the 3 remaining Presidential candidates, none of whose bosses could get a majority of delegates but none would give in, "One night of this is great theater. Two, and we look like idiots."

But on that day, January 4, McCarthy moved into the Speaker's office, prematurely, ahead of time, without authority. He followed George W. Bush's path after the 2000 election: Act like it's settled, and you've already won, and people will think you did. They didn't think so, and the word "squatting" came to mind.

By the end of the day, there had been 6 ballots for Speaker, and McCarthy still hadn't won. Trump released a statement telling those Republican holdouts, who had grown to 21, that they were embarrassing themselves, and that they should stop it, and vote for McCarthy. But Trump no longer had control over the Frankenstein monster he'd built.

I saw someone write on Facebook, "At this pace, Kevin McCarthy is gonna have the first pick in this year's NFL draft." When he became 0-for-9 on January 5, I was reminded of the title character's unexcused absences in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

There was a 10th ballot on January 5. He lost that, too. It was now the longest balloting process for the Speaker since 1855 -- before the American Civil War. I began to think of a song by Led Zeppelin: "How Many More Times?" On January 6 -- 2 years to the day after the insurrection that failed to prevent the certification of Biden's election as President -- he fell to 0-for-12. I thought of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and thought, At what point does he just say there are five lights?

The ballots kept coming, and McCarthy still couldn't get a majority. So he began "giving away the store." He made concession after concession to the "Never Kevins," including the scrapping of the rule that said that it would take 5 Representatives to file a motion to remove the Speaker: Now, it would take only 1. In other words, any single member of the House, including some of the craziest right-wingers ever to sit in it, had the chance to extort McCarthy.

At this point, Mike Rogers of Alabama couldn't take it any longer, and walked over toward Gaetz, and was physically restrained by Richard Hudson of North Carolina. A 14th ballot was taken, and still, Gaetz wouldn't give in. Meanwhile, every time a ballot began, and a Democrat nominated Jeffries, a chant of "Ha-keem! Ha-keem! Ha-keem!" went up.

Finally, shortly after Midnight on January 7, a 15th ballot was held. Gaetz and the last 5 holdouts voted "Present," rather than for any particular challenger. That meant that McCarthy only had to get a majority of those who actually voted for a candidate, and he now had it, 215-214, instead of the 218 he thought he would need.

As of this writing -- the date on the post reads "January 7, 2022," but I'm backdating all entries after calendar year 2022 to that year, so all entries for a day of the year are together -- the general public still does not know what McCarthy offered Gaetz to get him, and the others he was leading, to change their votes to "Present," but he got it. McCarthy had finally been elected the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

No Speaker has ever had so little leverage. Ali Vitali of MSNBC said that, now, every single Republican member can hold whatever McCarthy wants to do hostage for their own purposes. One Facebook poster I saw wrote, "Kevin McCarthy sold his soul and only got a t-shirt that says I'VE BEEN TO MAR-A-LAGO." (Trump's Florida estate.)

And then, before handing over the gavel, Jeffries, as the House rules allowed him to do, made a statement. And it was a fantastic speech, revving the Democrats up, making him look like exactly what they'd hoped he'd be: The man who should be the Speaker of the House. He handed the gavel over to McCarthy, whose speech was quiet and conciliatory, befitting someone who was in no position to "spike the football."

And then, January 10, the House Republicans, "led" by McCarthy, voted to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. Now, who's trying to "defund the police"?

UPDATE: On October 3, angry at McCarthy's negotiations to keep the federal government funded, Gaetz filed a motion to vacate the Speaker's office, and it passed. The joke was too easy, and came quickly: "If you turn up your base too loud, it can destroy your speaker."

McCarthy was Speaker for just under 9 months -- almost the average length of a human pregnancy. And yet, these Republicans, who proudly declare themselves to be "pro-life," gave McCarthy Speakership a late-term abortion.

It took 22 days for the Republicans to agree on a new Speaker, finally electing Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

*

January 7, 2023 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Two games were played in the NFL. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Las Vegas Raiders, 31-13 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. And the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Tennessee Titans, 20-16 at TIAA Bank Stadium in Jacksonville.

There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz, 126-118 at the United Center in Chicago. Zach LaVine scored 36 points.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 127-117 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Luka Dončić scored 34.

* The Boston Celtics beat the San Antonio Spurs, 121-116 at the AT&T Center (now the Frost Bank Center)  in San Antonio. Jason Tatum scored 34.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Golden State Warriors, 115-101 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings, 136-134 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. LeBron James led all scorers on the day with 37.

And there were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat the New York Rangers, 4-3 at the Prudential Center. Damon Severson scored the winning goal, 2:13 into overtime.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-4 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

* The Seattle Kraken beat the Ottawa Senators, 8-4 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-3 in a shootout at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* The Colorado Avalanche beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Cale Makar scored the winning goal with 2:51 left in overtime.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Vegas Golden Knights, 5-1 at the T-Mobile Arena in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-2 at the SAP Center in San Jose.

January 6, 2021: Insurrection At the Capitol

January 6, 2021: Treason was committed by supporters of the sitting President of the United States, and possibly by the President himself.

These facts are not in dispute:

* September 29, 2020: President Donald J. Trump, having been nominated by the Republican Party for a 2nd term, was debating the Democratic Party's nominee, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Trump was asked about right-wing groups, including the one calling themselves the Proud Boys: "Proud Boys, stand back, and stand by."

* November 3: Election Day. For most of the night, Trump led in Electoral Votes and popular votes.

* November 4: After midnight on Election Day, things began to change, because votes on the West Coast, which were always expected to favor Biden, began to come in. Biden surpassed Trump in the popular vote, and the Electoral Vote became very close, as several States saw Trump's lead in them shrink, and eventually turn toward Biden.

* November 7: Most major news outlets admit that Biden has a lead in the State of Pennsylvania that is so large, Trump cannot possibly retake it. Therefore, if every other State still in doubt still falls to Trump, Biden will still have the 270 Electoral Votes necessary to win the election. Joe Biden is now the President-elect.

Biden makes a victory speech that night in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Trump refuses to concede.

* December 7: The Republican Party of the State of Arizona -- a state narrowly won by Biden -- sends out a communication, asking supporters if they were willing to give their lives fighting over the election results.

* December 14: The Electoral College meets. Biden wins their vote, 306 to 232.

* December 19: On his Twitter account, Trump announced the following: "Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

* December 27: Trump has a conference call with officials with the U.S. Department of Justice, who tell him, "DOJ can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election." Trump tells them, "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen." He again tweets a promotion of the scheduled January 6 rally.

* January 3, 2021: Trump orders Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller to "do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators" on January 6. Not the Capitol Building. Not members of Congress. The demonstrators.

* January 4: Secretary Miller orders prohibiting the deployment of members of the District of Columbia National Guard with weapons, helmets, body armor or riot control agents, without his personal approval. In other words, the only protection the Capitol Building complex will have for the certification of the Electoral Votes will be the U.S. Capitol Police, under the control of the Congress, not the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, as would be the U.S. Army or the D.C. National Guard.

* January 5: Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy -- reporting to Miller, who reports to Trump -- issues orders to D.C. National Guard Commanding Major General William J. Walker: He must seek approval from McCarthy and Miller before preparing to respond to a civil disturbance. Previously, he had the authority to respond without such permission.

* January 6, 2021:

** 3:23 AM: Ron Watkins posts a tweet accusing Vice President Mike Pence of orchestrating a coup against Trump, and links to a blog post calling for "the immediate arrest of VP, for treason." The idea appears to be that Pence isn't doing enough to keep Trump (and himself) in office, because, as Vice President, it is his duty to read and certify the Electoral Vote totals, and he has already told Trump that he will do his duty.

Watkins is the son of Jim Watkins, operator of the white supremacist website 8chan. Both are major figures in the QAnon conspiracy group. (Ironically, Jim's ex-wife and Ron's mother is Korean. Jim met her while serving in Korea in the U.S. Army.)

** 8:17 AM: Trump tweets: "States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!"

Here, the ALL CAPS are Trump's, not mine. At least 55 lawsuits attempting to get various States' vote totals disqualified have been filed, and all of them have failed, due to lack of evidence. As I said, I am listing facts that are not in dispute. The fact that Trump has launched accusations of voter fraud is not in dispute. The fact that none of his accusations has yet been found by any court to have any merit is also not in dispute. It is possible to believe that there is merit to these cases, but, as of January 5, 2022, no court has found any such merit.

** 9:00 AM: The "March to Save America" rally begins at the Ellipse, to the south of the White House. Among the speakers is Representative Morris "Mo" Brooks of Alabama, who says, "Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass!"

** 10:50 AM: Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, and one of the lawyers helping Trump sue to overturn the election, begins speaking at the rally. He repeats conspiracy theories that voting machines were "crooked," and calls for "trial by combat." This is a tradition dating to the Middle Ages, essentially a sanctioned duel, in which the winner -- who kills the loser -- must have been the one who was right, since God allowed him to be the one to live.

** 10:58 AM: A Proud Boys contingent leaves the rally, and marches toward the Capitol Building, a mile and a half southeast down Pennsylvania Avenue.

** 12:00 Noon: Trump begins his speech, lasting over 1 hour. He repeats his allegations of a stolen election. He criticizes Pence by name 6 times. He accuses fellow Republicans of not doing enough to help him. He says, "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

He says he will walk with the crowd to the Capitol. Of course, as he usually does, he breaks his word, and heads back to the White House. Why should he risk anything, when he's got thousands of people willing to do it for him?

** 12:05 PM: Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona tweets that Biden should concede, and demands that this happen by the next morning.

** 12:20 PM: An officer of the Federal Protective Service, the security agency for federal government buildings other than the White House and the Capitol, writes in an email, "POTUS is encouraging the protestors to march to capitol grounds and continue protesting there." "POTUS" meaning "President Of The United States."

** 12:28 PM: A FPS officer -- I have no way of knowing whether it is the same one -- reports 10-15,000 people moving toward the Capitol.

** 12:49 PM: Capitol Police respond to a report of possible explosive devices at the headquarters of both major parties' National Committee headquarters. Molotov cocktails and homemade napalm are found. No bombs are detonated.

** 12:57 PM: FPS officer report that the Capitol Police barricade on the west side of the building has been breached.

** 1:00 PM: The ceremony to certify the Electoral Vote begins. Sometime before this, Pence had released a letter stating that the Constitution of the United States prevents him from unilaterally interfering with the vote count. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund calls Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington (a.k.a. "DC Metro Police" or just "DC Metro"). Contee deploys 100 officers to the Capitol complex.

** 1:10 PM: The earliest DC Metro officers arrive. Meanwhile, Trump's speech finally ends, with these words: "We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country."

** 1:12 PM: As required for an objection to be heard in such a case, one Republican Congressman, Gosar, and one Republican Senator, Rafael "Ted" Cruz of Texas, object to certifying the Electoral Votes of the State of Arizona. (The States' votes are read alphabetically: Those of Alabama and Alaska, which went for Trump, were accepted as certified. Arizona, which went for Biden, was next.) The joint session of Congress breaks up, and members go to their separate chambers to debate the objection.

(Cruz had opposed Trump for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, heard Trump call his wife ugly and accuse his father of being involved in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and not only did nothing to defend them, but became one of Trump's leading supporters.)

** 1:30 PM: Capitol Police are overwhelmed, and retreat up the steps of the Building.

** 1:49 PM: Chief Sund requests assistance from General Walker. Walker loads Guardsmen onto buses in anticipation of receiving permission to deploy from Secretary McCarthy.

** 1:51 PM: Michael D. Brown, former Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now a radio talk show host, tweets that the people breaching Capitol security are not pro-Trump right-wing protestors, but left-wing protestors in disguise: Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others. Given the pro-Trump paraphernalia they had, they would have been, to borrow a Winston Churchill phrase, very well disguised. These claims are soon repeated by others, including Todd Herman, guest hosting for the ailing Rush Limbaugh.

You might remember Brown as the FEMA Director who botched the response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, and was told by President George W. Bush, "Yer doin' a heck of a job, Brownie."

** 2:05 PM: The 1st death of the proceedings occurs: Kevin Greeson, 55, of Athens, Alabama, suffers a heart attack on the West Front of the Capitol. There is no indication that he had participated in any violence. The accusation that his heart attack was caused by a taser left in his pocket going off is unfounded, as is the accusation that he stole a portrait from the Capitol, as none of the protestors had yet made it inside.

** 2:12 PM: The 1st rioter enters the Capitol, Dominic Pezzola, through a window he had broken on the northwest side.

** 2:13 PM: Pence is removed from the Senate chamber to a nearby office. The Senate is gaveled into recess.

** 2:14 PM: Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman leads a mob to backup in front of a set of Senate doors while Senators attempt to evacuate. In so doing, he may have saved several lives, including Pence's.

** 2:22 PM: A conference call of D.C. leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, Metro Police Chief Contee, and Capitol Police Chief Sund, calls Secretary McCarthy, and asks for additional D.C. National Guard support. Sund says, "I am making urgent, urgent, immediate request for National Guard assistance." 

** 2:23 PM: A police lieutenant sprays the crowd with a chemical substance, possibly tear gas. Julian Khater sprays a chemical substance of his own, hitting Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, a 42-year-old native of South River, Middlesex County, New Jersey, who had publicly expressed support of Trump.

** 2:24 PM: Trump tweets, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA Demands the truth!"

At this point, several videos of the attack captured a chant of "Hang Mike Pence!" Supporters of the President wanted to hang the Vice President, for doing his duty to the Constitution, instead of maintaining loyalty to the President.

Yes, it really happened. No, they were not kidding.

At the same time, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, is removed from the House Chamber by her protective detail. Her life was definitely in danger: Within a few minutes of this action, Dawn Bancroft, a gym owner from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, made a selfie video claiming, "We got inside. We did our part. We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin' brain, but we didn't find her."

On the one-year anniversary, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer revealed that he was targeted: He was "within 30 feet" of "nasty, racist bigoted insurrectionists," and heard one of them yell, "There's the big Jew, let's get him!"

** 2:44 PM: A rioter attempts to force entry into the Speaker's Lobby next to the House Chamber. She is shot by a Capitol Police officer. Her name is Ashli Babbitt, from the San Diego area. She had shown signs of mental illness and violent tendencies as far back as 2015. She had accused Pence of treason, and called for the resignation of Chief Justice John Roberts, and she had now been shot and killed committing an act of treason. She was 35 years old, and the 1st "martyr" of the QAnon movement.

** 2:49 PM: Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat, offers the use of the Virginia National Guard, stationed across the Potomac River from Washington, for the protection of the Capitol. His offer is refused by Secretary McCarthy.

** 3:04 PM: Secretary Miller finally approves the activation of 1,100 DCNG soldiers. But he still doesn't approve their deployment.

** 3:05 PM: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Republican, does a live interview with DC TV station WUSA-Channel 9. He says he called Trump to urge him to calm people down, but Trump did nothing.

** 3:10 PM: Dave Rorher, Deputy Executive of Fairfax County, Virginia, dispatches County police to cross the Potomac and aid the Capitol Police.

** 3:13 PM: Trump tweets, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order -- respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!" The violence was already over 2 hours old.

** 3:15 PM: Governor Northam calls Speaker Pelosi, and tells her he's sending the Virginia National Guard, no matter what Trump and his lackeys want.

** 3:37 PM: Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, orders mobilization of his State's National Guard, because he anticipates it being called.

** 4:05 PM: Biden holds a press conference, and calls on Trump to "demand an end to this siege."

** 4:17 PM: After watching the events unfold on TV, and after receiving requests from his own children -- Ivanka was upset with not the violence, but the "optics," and Donald Jr. told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, "He's got to condemn this shit, ASAP" -- Trump uploads a video to his Twitter account: 

I know your pain. I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side.

But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt.

It's a very tough period of time. There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us -- from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace.

So go home. We love you. You're very special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home, and go home in peace.

** 4:26 PM: Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia, a recovering drug addict who wanted to become a drug counselor, but was addicted to QAnon, collapses at the Capitol, and is taken to a hospital. She dies that night. The cause is later determined to be an amphetamine overdose.

** 4:32 PM: Secretary Miller finally approves the DCNG's deployment.

** 5:08 PM: General Walker finally gets Secretary Miller's permission to deploy the DCNG, over 4 hours after the violence began.

** 5:40 PM: The Capitol Building is cleared of rioters, but not before portraits are stolen, Pelosi's office is broken into, and some rioters had even smeared their own excrement on the walls. Some carried Confederate flags inside the Building.

It was noted that this was the worst attack on the Capitol since August 24, 1814, when the British Army burned it (and the White House) as part of the War of 1812, but even they did not walk around the Building with their own flags. And no one dared bring a Confederate flag into the Building during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, either. Yet, now, it had been done.

** 5:45 PM: Ashli Babbitt is pronounced dead.

** 6:09 PM: Rosanne Boyland is pronounced dead.

** 7:00 PM: Facebook, which also owns Instagram, removes Trump's posts from both platforms. Twitter, Trump's favorite social media platform, follows, 2 minutes later with a temporary ban.

** 8:00 PM: The Capitol Police declare the Capitol Building to be secure.

** 8:06 PM: The Senate reconvenes, with Pence presiding, and debates the objection to the Electoral Votes from Arizona.

** 9:00 PM: Pelosi calls the House back to order.

** 10:00 PM: A few hours after texting his brother that he had twice been hit with what he thought was pepper spray, but was "in good shape," Officer Sicknick collapses from what is later determined to have been a stroke. He is taken to a nearby hospital.

** 10:15 PM: The Senate votes 93-6 to reject the objection to Arizona's Electoral Votes.

** 11:30 PM: The House votes 303-121 to reject the objection to Arizona's Electoral Votes.

* January 7:

** 12:15 AM: The recording of the Electoral Votes continues. When Pennsylvania's are read, Representative Scott Perry of that State and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri file an objection.

** 12:55 AM: The Senate rejects the Pennsylvania objection, 92-7.

** 3:10 AM: The House rejects the Pennsylvania objection, 282-138.

** 3:36 AM: The Electoral Vote is certified: Biden 306, Trump 232, just as had been presented to Congress. Despite the shock of the day, I had stayed up, watching the whole thing, and noted that the time of the certification was reminiscent of the 1970 hit by the band Chicago: "25 or 6 to 4."

** 9:30 PM: Officer Sicknick dies, after being attacked by a Trump supporter. So much for "law and order" and "Back the Blue." This finalizes the death toll from the insurrection: 5, 2 of them not directly due to violence.

* January 8: Trump tweets that he will not attend Biden's Inauguration. This is his last tweet, as Twitter permanently bans him, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence." Meanwhile, FBI Assistant Director Steve D'Antuono calls a press conference, saying that there is no evidence that Antifa members were part of the crowd storming the Capitol.

* January 13: The House impeaches Trump for the high crime of "Incitement of Insurrection." The House does this, knowing full well that the Senate will acquit him, and that the Senate trial won't begin until after Trump leaves office, anyway. There have now been 4 impeachments of a President by the House in the 232-year history of both offices, and 2 of them have been of Trump.

* January 20: Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. Trump, for once as good as his word, did not attend: He left the White House in the morning, and was already on the ground at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Florida retreat, when Biden was sworn in.

Donald Trump tried to overturn the result of the election. It was an attempted coup d'état, and he didn't care who got hurt in service to him. Not even his own Vice President.

The Capitol Insurrection was a greater threat to American democracy than the attacks on Fort Sumter in 1861, Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the World Trade Center in 2001 combined. Their side accuses us of trying to smear their patriotism by "making every day January 6." Why not? After all, their side smeared our patriotism by making every day September 11.

Hundreds of people have been prosecuted as a result of the Insurrection. Through January 6, 2022, the 1st Anniversary of the attack, none of these have been people in the Trump Administration. Trump himself has not been formally charged with anything.

What have we learned, Charlie Brown?

UPDATE: Apparently, not much. On October 28, 2022, a man named David DePape broke into Pelosi's San Francisco home in the middle of the night. She was not there, but her husband, real estate developer Paul Pelosi, was. As the Speaker of the House, she has a security detail; as the spouse of the Speaker, he does not. He, like his wife, was 82 years old at the time.

DePape, only finding him, and perhaps not knowing who he was, yelled, "Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy?" and attacked Paul with a hammer. Paul managed to call 911, and DePape was arrested, and was found to have all kinds of right-wing conspiracy material at his residence. He had come to kill the Speaker, just as the Insurrectionists had. Paul had a fractured skull, but, despite his injuries and his age, surgery to correct the damage was successful.

Finally, on August 1, 2023, Trump was indicted in federal court in the District of Columbia, on 4 counts of conspiring to defraud the government and disenfranchise voters, and corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, including charges connected with the Insurrection. The trial was scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024. 

In cases that appear not to be connected with the Insurrection:

* On March 30, 2023, Trump was indicted by the State of New York, on 34 counts of fraud. On May 30, 2024, he was convicted on all 34 counts.

* On June 8, 2023, Trump was indicted in federal court in Florida, on 40 counts relating to the possession of classified government documents. As of Trump's conviction in New York, the Florida trial had yet to be scheduled.

* And on August 14, 2023, Trump was indicted by the State of Georgia, on 19 counts relating to attempting to overturn the Electoral Votes given to Biden in that State. As of Trump's conviction in New York, the Georgia trial had yet to be scheduled.

Trump managed to get these last 3 trials, and his sentencing for his fraud conviction, delayed until after the election. In the meantime, the Supreme Court ruled that he had immunity for all "official acts" as President.

On November 5, 2024, the American people voted that launching an insurrection to overturn the results of an election was no reason to disqualify someone from being elected President again. Trump has promised to pardon the 1/6 terrorists.

*

January 6, 2021 was a Wednesday. Believe it or not, all sporting events scheduled for the day went forward. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its regular season and its Playoffs. The NHL hadn't yet started, due to COVID restrictions knocking the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons out of whack, and needed another 7 days.

But the day featured 11 NBA games, including the Washington team, but they were not scheduled to play in Washington. If they were, then it would likely have been postponed.

* The New York Knicks beat the Utah Jazz, 112-100 at Madison Square Garden. Julius Randle matched his uniform number with 30 points, and also had 16 rebounds.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Wizards, 141-136 at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia. Bradley Beal scored 60 for the Wiz, but the Sixers got 38 from Joel Embiid and 28 from Seth Curry.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 102-94 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Gordon Hayward scored 44 points for the Hornets.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 105-94 at the Amway Center in Orlando. (It's now named the Kia Center.)

* The Boston Celtics beat the Miami Heat, 107-105 at the FTX Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami.

* The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 111-110 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Houston Rockets, 114-107 at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Detroit Pistons, 130-115 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Toronto Raptors, 123-115 at the Footprint Center (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Golden State Warriors, 108-101 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 128-124 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.