They'd Rather Fight Than Find Out

      ...And that's as much agreement as we're probably going to see over the House Select Committee to investigate the 6 January mass break-in at the U. S. Capitol.  The Dems got seven picks (and filled one with Republican Liz Cheney) while the GOP got five.  Speaker Pelosi rejected two of them.  She can do that, but it's something no speaker has done before and in response, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy bowed out, removing all five of the Republicans he had chosen.

      Indiana's got a dog in this fight: our very own Representative Jim Banks was one of the two men the Speaker nixed.

      The GOP says they'll make their own committee -- presumably without Bender's "blackjack and hookers," and so anyone who was hoping for a single answer, however unsatisfactory, to "What happened?" is not going to be getting one from the House.

      Alas, the honorable Mr. Banks wasn't impressing me with his logic when he said, in part, the Speaker's refusal to seat him and Rep. Jim Jordan showed that, "...this was never a serious effort on their part, it’s all a political witch hunt. They want to make this all about Donald Trump, dragging Republican members of Congress through the mud and attacking 75 million people that voted for Donald Trump.” (Source here.)

      I was watching TV on 6 January with a kind of horrified fascination.  While there were quite a few people breaking doors and windows, it wasn't 75 million, and trying to drag them into the mob action -- which Speaker Pelosi has not done and Rep. Banks has -- strikes me as more than a little unfair.

      I'd like to see a fairly rancorous and fully bipartisan House or Senate committee investigate 6 January, in public view and with plenty of shouting and a long witness list.  It looks like that's not going to happen.  I'm far less interested in the Democrats and Republicans suiting up and playing press-conference ping-pong, more concerned with accusing one another of bad faith, ill-will and lousy tipping (not to mention their Moms dressed them funny) than unpacking the chain of events that led to an angry mob breaching the U. S. Capitol instead of merely milling around outside, waving signs, scaring passers-by and annoying Congress from a safe distance in the normal (and generally First Amendment-protected) manner of most protests.