Senate Republicans filibustered the creation of an independent commission to study the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol. Mainstream media wagged their finger at Republicans for playing politics.
Summary
Legislation creating an independent commission to look into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is dead after a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
- Republican leadership in the House and Senate argued the commission was not necessary and that it would duplicate work already being conducted by the Department of Justice and a spate of Congressional committees.
- West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin said Republican senators voting to block the bill “will have to live with” “the betrayal of the oath” they take.
- According to The Hill, Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell is living up to his self-proclaimed nickname “Grip Reaper”, executing the “first successful filibuster” in the Biden era.
- The filibustered vote is apparently a symbol of how broken Washington has become, as Maine Sen. Susan Collins worked to get Republican concessions into the bill while Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer effectively ignored it.
- Yahoo News’ coverage led with Schumer’s remarks that “Trump’s big lie has now fully enveloped the Republican Party”, downplaying Republican’s concerns about the effectiveness and duplicative nature of the commission.
- The New York Times characterized the Senate GOP’s moves as a “stark display of loyalty” to former President Trump and highlighting comments from rogue GOP Senators who “expressed disgust with their own party.”
- Dan Balz with the Washington Post slathered the paint of liberal bias all over his analysis, calling the vote’s filibuster “a partisan act and another reflection of democracy under stress”, acting as though pressure from the left to eliminate the filibuster and abolish the electoral college is totally normal and in keeping with the norms of American politics (spoiler alert: it’s not).
- Many of the larger outlets on the right downplayed the vote, with Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax not even mentioning it on their front page.
- RedState gloated over the absence of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who did not vote at all on the legislation and is drawing fire from progressives who see her as a roadblock because of her continued support for maintaining the filibuster in the Senate.
- Townhall.com argued that if Congress is going to set up an independent commission to investigate the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol, a similar commission should be implemented to study the origins of the coronavirus and China’s culpability in its spread.
- The Daily Wire celebrated Republicans blocking the Jan 6 commission bill, highlighting concerns from a number of Republican senators who took issue with the partisan structure of a supposedly independent non-partisan commission.
Return to Freespoke 
© Dallas Gerber, 2021
