“RT to thank the men and women in blue on #LawEnforcementAppreciationDay,” Kevin McCarthy tweeted from his account earlier this month. The very produced one minute and nine second-long video featured the Republican House minority leader riding bikes with law enforcement and handling memorial wreaths. The tweet, dated Jan. 9, ends with the words “thank you to our police.”
But just three days before that tweet, on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, McCarthy and nearly all House Republicans skipped a ceremony where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a moment of silence and read the names of U.S. Capitol officers who lost their lives as a result of the insurrection. Just one sitting Republican member of Congress, Liz Cheney, showed.
“The Republican Party holds itself as the champions of law enforcement,” Rolling Stone noted. “They campaign on slogans of ‘Back the Blue.’” Example: Kevin McCarthy in a glossy Jan. 9 video that featured lots of Kevin McCarthy (and we know he sure does love spotlight and theatrics). “They hold rallies flying the ‘Thin Blue Line’ flag. They purport to celebrate the cops who shield the nation from violence and anarchy.”
“But when it came time to show up in the halls of Congress for a remembrance of the sacrifices Capitol and Metropolitan Police made defending our democracy from violence last Jan. 6, Republicans lawmakers didn’t bother to show up,” the report continued. McCarthy’s self-promotional video wasn’t even recent, because, judging by clothing and people present, it appears to be from footage dating to May 2021:
U.S. Capitol Police have helped make it safe for Kevin McCarthy to bloviate to his heart’s content (can anyone remember even one substantive thing he said during that eight-hour speech?), but on the anniversary of the deadly white supremacist insurrection that resulted in the deaths of a number of officers, the thanks they got from him was a middle finger. Not even that, because he didn’t bother showing his face to give it.
But just three days before that tweet, on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, McCarthy and nearly all House Republicans skipped a ceremony where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a moment of silence and read the names of U.S. Capitol officers who lost their lives as a result of the insurrection. Just one sitting Republican member of Congress, Liz Cheney, showed.
“The Republican Party holds itself as the champions of law enforcement,” Rolling Stone noted. “They campaign on slogans of ‘Back the Blue.’” Example: Kevin McCarthy in a glossy Jan. 9 video that featured lots of Kevin McCarthy (and we know he sure does love spotlight and theatrics). “They hold rallies flying the ‘Thin Blue Line’ flag. They purport to celebrate the cops who shield the nation from violence and anarchy.”
“But when it came time to show up in the halls of Congress for a remembrance of the sacrifices Capitol and Metropolitan Police made defending our democracy from violence last Jan. 6, Republicans lawmakers didn’t bother to show up,” the report continued. McCarthy’s self-promotional video wasn’t even recent, because, judging by clothing and people present, it appears to be from footage dating to May 2021:
U.S. Capitol Police have helped make it safe for Kevin McCarthy to bloviate to his heart’s content (can anyone remember even one substantive thing he said during that eight-hour speech?), but on the anniversary of the deadly white supremacist insurrection that resulted in the deaths of a number of officers, the thanks they got from him was a middle finger. Not even that, because he didn’t bother showing his face to give it.