• Are former President Trump and his followers heading towards a second attempt at an insurrection with the aim of overthrowing American democracy?

• Is the Supreme Court preparing to abolish abortion from as many states as possible, endangering and/or ruining the lives of American girls and women, and to follow up this action by the end of June, 2022, when the current term expires, by devastating rulings eliminating affirmative action, strengthening Trump and his fascist followers, eliminating effective climate control in the U.S. and abroad, taking rights away from gay people, and making the American oligarchs and hedge fund billionaires stronger and stronger?

• Will the pervasive use of assault weapons and the lack of effective gun control throughout the U.S. endanger the lives of our children and grandchildren, and ordinary law-abiding citizens, all ratified by the six conservative, Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court appointed by Trump and other former Republican Presidents?

All of the above will enrage the women of this country, the children of this country and their parents, all Democrats in the U.S., Americans who are members of a minority group, homosexuals, and non-citizens who live in the U.S.

Who is left: rich white American men and those who depend on them to the extent that they cannot survive without the support of these rich white men.

I believe that my ancestor, Minuteman and later Lt. Pelatiah Everett, who served under George Washington for the entire duration of the Revolutionary War, from April 19, 1775 to November, 1783, fired the first shot at the British in the First Revolutionary War, at the Village Green in Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. I hope to fire the first shot in the Second Revolutionary War, with words and not bullets from a musket, with this piece. After all, the Second Amendment to the Constitution regarding the right to bear arms is preceded by the First Amendment, the right to free speech.

And the enemy is not the British but Putin-admirer Trump and his MAGA supporters who have brought America to its current stage of great civic unrest, many of whom are greedy, racist Americans who care only for how much money they can make at the expense of other American citizens and those throughout the world who support us.

The House Select Committee investigating the 1/6 insurrection will begin its public hearings on June 9, 2022, with a prime time 1.5- to 2-hour presentation, followed by four days of 2 or more hours of hearings beginning at 10am on June 13, 15, 16, and 21, and concluding with another prime time wrap up of the hearings on June 23. The hearings will not be run by blustering, self-dealing Congressmembers who often do not know how to ask a question or cross-examine a witness, but by experienced prosecutors operating in five distinct teams:

• The Purple Team will deal with militias like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and QAnon;

• The Gold Team will deal with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results;

• The Red Team will deal with the “Stop the Steal” Rally;

• The Green Team will deal with how the “Stop the Steal” Rally and the 1/6 Insurrection were financed and by whom; and

• The Blue Team will deal with the response to the 1/6 coup attempt by the Defense Department and Trump and his sycophants.

The hearings will feature live testimony (perhaps even by Trump), video testimony, supporting documents, videos from the 1/6 coup attempt and before and after, and a few surprises, all of which, according to Congressman and Select Committee member Jamie Raskin, “will blow the roof off”. By July 4, 2022, Independence Day, the Report of the Select Committee will be out, tying all the hearings together and making recommendations, the Supreme Court will have finished its work destroying the rights of most Americans, and the nation will be ready for the Second Revolutionary War.

I expect that as the months roll by after July 4, the women and mothers of this country will take to the streets protesting the Supremes abortion ruling, the children of America will refuse to go to school, and Democrats like me will show courage and rise up and return the MAGA people to the closets in the basement where they for many years have been held until voting day, when they were let out for a day to vote for right wing Republican candidates.

Regarding the 2008 District of Columbia v Heller case, which supporters believe gives them an unlimited right to bear any arms they want, the 5-4 decision had its limits: the majority was talking about owning a gun for self defense, and then stated firmly that there were certain types of guns that were not appropriate for civilian gun owners to own, without specifying what they were. It also clearly stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. For a newly 18-year-old boy to buy an AR-15 on his birthday, 375 rounds of ammunition the next day, and a second assault weapon the third day he was 18, and that he could do all this without any regulation, was not what the Supremes intended in the Heller decision.

Iwas born in 1940, before World War II, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the economic meltdown and the Great Recession, the Trump Presidency orchestrated by the Russians, and most recently Putin’s invasion and destruction of Ukraine three months ago.

In my youth and as I grew up, America was tougher and you did what you were told. I was drafted in 1965 and was one day away from going to Vietnam as a private when I was sworn in as an Officer and a Gentlemen in Navy JAG, ultimately becoming a Lt. Commander. I did get to Vietnam, but on my own terms, defending Marines and others who opposed the Vietnam War. It is time for the U.S. Government to get tough again, and to lock up or put back in the basement those Republicans who are threatening our democracy. Biden, grow some nuts, and do what is right: Invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 (see my article in LAProgressive.com published on May 20, 2022 entitled “Time to Eliminate the GOP?”), and do what we need you to do…

There is nothing to prevent one of the two major political parties from being forced out of existence; it happened in the 1850s when the Whigs and the “Know Nothing” Party were disestablished and the Republican Party under Lincoln was created. And there Is good reason to force extreme right wing militias like those at Ruby Ridge and the ones who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1986, and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and QAnon supporters out of existence or forced back into the basement.

There are Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who can form the basis of a new Conservative party that have American ideals at heart. Biden, take a look at the eyes of Cheney [the daughter of that American Darth Vader, Dick Cheney!] and Kinzinger as they speak. They are rock conservative, but they are true Americans and are not afraid to facilitate the lock up of those fellow Republicans who have broken the law and worked to destroy our democracy.

And I hope there will be a run on red paint at the paint store this weekend…

This commentary is also posted on LA Progressive