We want to take a moment to salute the estimable, principled, brave family of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick for their righteous spurning of cretinous hypocrites Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, who among many other crimes helped make Sicknick's death possible and now want to pretend they didn't. Calling bullshit on a complicit GOP at Tuesday's Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in a snub seen round the Internet, Sicknick's father, mother and brother refused to shake the greasy co-conspirators' hands or take their medal or even heed their existence; they just resolutely walked... right...past...them in a polite and deafening Fuck You, richly deserved. Mensches, all. We love the sight of GOP humiliation any time of the day.
Congressional leaders had gathered Tuesday at the Capitol to honor hundreds of officers of the Capitol Police and D.C. Police who on Jan. 6 defended them and the rest of us from what Chuck Schumer called "a day of violence and a day of darkness." Citing their "valor" - as opposed to, say, Run-For-The-Hills Hawley - Schumer added, "History will forever note that on January 6th, democracy lived on because of them." Brian Sicknick was sprayed during the attack with a chemical substance; he later collapsed, and died the next day of multiple strokes. Over 140 officers were injured, Howard Liebengood of the Capitol Police and Jeffrey Smith of D.C. Police killed themselves soon after, and many others "still carry the mental, physical and emotional scars."
The awarding of the Medals - to be placed at the Capitol, the Smithsonian, and both police headquarters - comes after a unanimous Senate vote; in the House, 21 GOP Reps somehow voted against it. Of course that wasn't the only failure by their spineless so-called leader; McCarthy's also stonewalled a Jan. 6 subpoena, regularly sucked up to his grotesque orange boss, declined to defend the Constitution from him and said he plans to "investigate" the Jan. 6 Committee because, per Hakeem Jeffries, "Shamelessness is their superpower." Little wonder Gold Medal recipients warmly embraced pols who still mostly believe in democracy, and stonily rebuffed duplicitous cowards, sycophants and wannabe Fascists working to destroy it.
Cue the spectacle of their two vile kingpins standing stiffly, frozen smiles in place - McCarthy clutching the medal, McConnell sticking out a cringey, desperate hand - as Sicknick's relatives file past, one after the other. Brian's (lifelong Republican) brother Ken: "They have no idea what integrity is." He sees Liz Cheney as their only "ray of hope" - she denounces McCarthy's "craven political ambition" - but she's a slim one amidst the grovelling and Nazi cosplay. So we thank the Sicknicks: Their small gesture of walking past and speaking up to gross hypocrisy is a rare profile in probity. It seems statesman Edmund Burke didn't say, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." What he said: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one."
