The FBI on Thursday arrested a former Trump State Department appointee, Federico Klein, for his participation in the Jan. 6 Trump insurrection.
Politico notes:
The alleged presence of a Trump political appointee at the riot may tie those events more closely to the president, although there is already ample evidence that many of those charged were inspired by Trump’s false claims about widespread election fraud and by his call for supporters to descend on Washington on Jan. 6 for events that he promised would be “wild.”
Klein assaulted police officers during the siege, the Washington Post adds:
Klein was still employed at the State Department as a staff assistant on Jan. 6 when he joined a mob in a tunnel leading into the U.S. Capitol, the FBI said. Then he allegedly “physically and verbally engaged with the officers holding the line” at the building’s entrance, according to the complaint. After ignoring officers’ orders to move back, he assaulted officers with a riot shield that had been stolen from police, the complaint said, and then used the shield to wedge open a door into the Capitol.
At one point, Klein was caught on video shouting for more insurrectionists to come to the front lines, where officers were struggling to hold back the mob.
“We need fresh people, need fresh people,” he said, according to the complaint.
No wonder the right is so feverishly working to divert public attention from the Capitol breach investigation. Federal authorities have indicted hundreds of Trump supporters for assaulting the Capitol and Capitol police officers on Jan. 6. Hundreds more arrests are expected. Unless I missed it, none of those arrested so far are identified as anything other than Trump supporters. Not a good look. Either for them, for Trump, or for Trump’s accomplices in Congress.
The right needs a distraction. A big, loud one. So did you hear Dr. Seuss has been “cancelled”? By Joe Biden and Democrats, to hear Fox News tell it. Nothing like performative outrage and a nice, shiny culture war to distract conservative voters from noticing their politcal party voted to overturn the 2020 election and abetted sedition:
“The cancel culture is canceling Dr. Seuss,” lamented Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, adding later, “It’s out of control.”
In fact (I’m catching up here from Tuesday):
Six Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published because of their use of offensive imagery, according to the business that oversees the estate of the children’s author and illustrator.
In a statement on Tuesday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises said that it had decided last year to end publication and licensing of the books by Theodor Seuss Geisel. The titles include his first book writing under the pen name Dr. Seuss, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” (1937), and “If I Ran the Zoo” (1950).
“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” Dr. Seuss Enterprises said in the statement. The business said the decision came after working with a panel of experts, including educators, and reviewing its catalog of titles.
Naturally, Ohio’s jacketless Republican congressman, Jim Jordan, got in on the act in a big way (Vanity Fair):
While discussing Dr. Seuss on Tuesday, The Five cohost Dana Perino brought up Republican Rep. Jim Jordan’s push for a congressional hearing focused on cancel culture and posited that Democrats should be open to the idea due to all the electoral defeats they have suffered “because of this very issue. If you go back to even just 2020, but I would even go back to 2016, the issues of this cancel culture mentality––‘defund the police,’ for example, things like that––they really had an impact on hurting Democrats in those downballot races in the state legislatures, in Congress.” Perino then added that “if Democrats were smart, they would realize they’re actually going to start losing even more elections because of this.” Later that day one of the news stories leading Fox’s website read: “Biden ‘cancels’ Dr. Seuss from ‘Read Across America’ proclamation.
It appears Dr. Seuss Enterprises, a private company, made a private business decision about its private property. Republicans, those stalwart defenders of private property and free-market capitalism, are up in arms.
Have they any “principles” left they haven’t sold out?