Tennessee columnist blasts state's GOP for opposing 1/6 commission: 'How much ice water must flow through your veins?'

On Tuesday, writing for the Knoxville News Sentinel, columnist Sam Venable laid into the eight Republican representatives and senators from Tennessee who refused to back the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

"How much deadly violence against your own members would it have taken for you to think this incident was serious enough to be probed?" wrote Venable. "Vice President Mike Pence's lifeless body in the noose rioters had erected on Capitol grounds? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's head on a pike? Rivers of blood flowing from the chambers where you hid as the building was being overrun by the mob?"

"How can you loudly express support for the men and women in blue and yet conclude that the deaths of, and injuries to, Capitol police — as well as those from other law enforcement agencies who tried to repel the assault — were not worth looking into?" Venable continued. "How much ice water must flow through your veins to listen to the impassioned plea for an investigation from the mother of fallen Capitol officer Brian Sicknick and then vote 'nay' when the vote was taken?"

After weeks of appearing open to the idea of a commission, both House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) came out against it. Despite this, several Republicans in the House and Senate voted for the commission anyway — but not enough to overcome a filibuster, the first of Biden's presidency.

"Why are you so determined to 'just move on' and forget this ugly moment?" concluded Venable. "Did you vote 'nay' out of fealty to former President Donald Trump? Or fear of him? Or both?"

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