True colors on display
19th January 2021 · 0 Comments
Most Louisianans were not surprised to see that all but two members of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation voted to object to the Electoral College votes, in certain states with large Black and brown populations, Five Louisiana Congress members and one U.S. Senator, all Republicans from Louisiana, gave Louisiana another black eye by supporting Donald Trump’s “Big Lie,” that the election was stolen from him.
U.S. Senator John N. Kennedy and U.S. Representatives Steve Scalise, Clay Wiggins, Mike Johnson and Garret Graves voted against the certification of Electoral Votes for Arizona and Pennsylvania. Three House members voted in objection to Arizona’s votes and all four of the aforementioned House officials voted in objection to Pennsylvania’s votes. In the Senate, Kennedy voted for the objection to Arizona’s votes but against the objection to Pennsylvania’s vote.
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy and U.S. Representative Cedric Richmond voted against the objections to the electoral votes for both states.
What is shocking and unforgivable about the majority of the Louisiana Delegation’s votes to object to the will of the American people is the fact that they voted to overturn the election results after Trump supporters committed an insurrection and stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, leaving five dead, 50 Capitol Police officers injured and destruction in the People’s House.
Political observers of the anarchy that occurred inside and outside of the U.S. Capitol say the Republicans were on a mission to launch a New Jim Crow Era and that their objections to the Electoral College votes in several states amounted to a barefaced attempt to nullify millions of votes cast by Black Americans.
There’s no doubt that the majority of Republicans in the Louisiana Delegation are guilty of attempting to invalid the Black vote and install Trump back into the Oval Office.
Given their bold attack on the U.S. Constitution, we are compelled to ask: Who are these people, what were they thinking, and what should be done about their seditious behavior?
Consider the following:
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy said. “I joined several Senate colleagues in calling for a bipartisan commission to inspect election issues raised across the country,” Kennedy said. The Republicans’ “goal was to ensure full confidence and transparency in our elections…”
Kennedy’s excuse for voting against the election results would be laughable if not so serious. His desire to have a commission “inspect election issues,” was an excuse to back-up the trumped-up election fraud lies that Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, cooked up to justify overthrowing the election.
Kennedy echoed everything Trump did. He mimicked Trump’s misogynistic lie that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election to get Hillary Clinton elected; joined Trump’s attacks against four Congresswomen of color that Trump tried to demean and otherize, and he said of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “I don’t mean any disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise spoke at a 2002 white supremacist rally sponsored by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) in Metairie. EURO was founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana politician David Duke.
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, a car salesman turned law enforcement officer is known for his tough talk on crime and wearing military-style gear. He once said social justice protesters in Louisiana should be met with deadly force. In a Facebook post accompanied by a photo of openly-armed Black protesters at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Louisville, Ky., Higgins vowed that anyone arriving in Louisiana “aggressively natured and armed” would have a “one way ticket” and that he’d personally “drop 10 of you.” The day after the posting, Facebook removed Higgin’s post over what it said was ‘incitement”’ to violence.
U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson was booed multiple times during a 2019 hearing on slave reparations and racial injustice when he said such repayments would “almost certainly be unconstitutional on their face” and that “monetary reparations from current taxpayers for the sins of Americans from many years ago” would be unjust.
U.S. Rep. Garret Graves addressed Trump supporters before then President-elect Donald Trump arrived to speak at a rally for then-U.S. Senate candidate John Kennedy.
While these officials purport to represent the “red” state of Louisiana, their actions have angered many Louisianans who are into the preservation of “whiteness,” with which the Republicans are pushing to control the politics and wealth of this country.
What can be done to stop these officials from continuing to subvert the rights of American voters and the U.S. Constitution?
Article I, Section 5, of the United States Constitution provides that “Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
Currently, there are ongoing investigations of some members of Congress who allegedly conspired with the insurrectionists in breaching the Capitol. For his part in the debacle, Donald J. Trump now holds the distinction of being the only POTUS to be impeached twice: most recently for Incitement of Insurrection.
We recommend, though, that new laws be created to abolish the objection to fair and honest election results and to indict all officials, including the POTUS for criminal acts, without any statute of limitations.
This article originally published in the January 18, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
