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I never thought that the spineless, degenerate, almost all white Republican U.S. senators would prove their patriotism and vote to convict Donald Trump. Trump, of course, was impeached for inciting the heinous, murderous, sickening riot of January 6.

On that date, the seat of government was desecrated and our Constitution threatened by disciples of a man who seemingly follows the playbook of Adolf Hitler and his like. Most frightening of all, Trump was perilously close to getting away with bringing down our democratic Republic.

Thats right, those thugs were in that Capitol to reverse the peaceful transference of power in this country. That transition of power, based upon the peoples vote, is what true democrats around the world so admire about this country. Our short-lived democracy was threatened by a would-be fascist dictator who knew exactly what he was doing when he lit the fuse that incited an invasion of folks set on murdering the vice president. How do we know that? They erected a noose just outside the doors of the Capitol and they yelled that they wanted to find the very vice president who never wavered in his respect and adulation for the president, who, as I have said again and again, has no low.

Stop and think about where Mike Pence is now. As I write this article, Pence has done nothing to strike back at the man who unleashed the mob against him and threatened his life and the lives of his family. Pence was asked to break the law and nullify the presidential election and now has nothing to say. That gives you a pretty good idea of his character. Remember, this is a man who could have been president.

It was not by accident that the House impeachment managers, including the unbelievably persuasive and heroic Jamie Raskin, kept referring to Pence during their statements. They wanted to let the spineless Republican senators know what was at stake.

It didnt work they threw their Republican colleague, Pence, overboard. The whole thing left the Republicans in a very bad place.

What was really going on here was evident. This was a last-ditch effort by the former white male majority in this country to preserve its power in the face of growing diversity. They know, as we all do, that the Black, Latino and progressive communities in the United States pulled together, and, for the sake of their children and their childrens children, voted for change.

This can all be traced back to the Civil War. Lincoln was assassinated, and after that, the emancipated slaves were put into economic and social servitude. Now it would appear that there is a legitimate chance that things are actually changing, and that is what is so frightening for those who have held on to power for so long. They were backed by Republican senators who looked and talked like them. These senators will be written into the history books as traitors.

So is Donald Trump finished? Hitler wasnt after he went to jail. I say that he is. After all, a lot of people voted for his conviction, including a handful of courageous Republicans. The impeachment trial of Donald Trump illustrates the same divisions that have always existed in this country, but things are changing. Frankly, there are more people who are insisting on sharing.

Lets just see whether at least some of the senators who voted with Trump will have put themselves at risk. Look at the two Democratic wins in Georgia. People know whats right.

Yes, I knew what the outcome of the trial would be, but I am quite sure that we are on the way to a better country. Thank you to the incredible Democratic managers and to all those who agree that things will get better. America, have heart.

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Alan Chartock: Is Donald Trump finished? It looks to me like he is - The Daily Freeman

UNITED NATIONS (AP) The Biden administration on Thursday rescinded former president Donald Trumps restoration of U.N. sanctions on Iran, an announcement that could help Washington move toward rejoining the 2015 nuclear agreement aimed at reining in the Islamic Republics nuclear program.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council on behalf of President Joe Biden saying the United States hereby withdraws three letters from the Trump administration culminating in its Sept. 19 announcement that the United States had re-imposed U.N. sanctions on Tehran.

Mills said in the letter obtained by The Associated Press that sanctions measures terminated in the 2015 council resolution endorsing the nuclear deal with six major powers, but restored by Trump in September, remain terminated.

Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in 2018, accusing Iran of serious violations.

Biden has said the United States wants to rejoin the pact and the State Department said Thursday the U.S. would accept an invitation from the European Union to attend a meeting of the participants in the original agreement -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran.

The Trump administrations decision to invoke a provision in the 2015 council resolution allowing the snapback of sanctions because Iran was in significant non-performance with its obligations under the accord was ignored by the rest of the Security Council and the world.

The overwhelming majority of members in the 15-nation council called Trumps action illegal, because the U.S. was no longer a member of the JCPOA.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations would not support re-imposing sanctions on Iran as the United States was demanding until he got a green light from the Security Council. He said there was uncertainty on whether or not former secretary of state Mike Pompeo had triggered the snapback mechanism

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Biden withdraws Trump's restoration of UN sanctions on Iran - Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP)

Two Central Park ice rinks are set to close after Sunday because New York City is cutting ties with the Trump Organization that operates them.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasios administration announced last month it would terminate business contracts with President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

As a result, Wollman Rink and Lasker Rink will close after Sundays sessions, CBS News and the New York Post reported.

Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, called the move purely a political stunt that only hurts New Yorkers.

Instead of focusing on a dying city which everyone is leaving because of rising crime, high taxes, closed businesses and totally incompetent leadership, the Mayor is painting signs in front of Trump Tower and trying to destroy the only outdoor activity available to children during a pandemic, Trump said in a statement.

De Blasio said the Trump Organization earns about $17 million a year in profits from its contracts to run the skating rinks, as well as a carousel in Central Park and a golf course in the Bronx.

He said the city would seek new vendors for all the attractions.

We are working diligently through our competitive RFP process to secure new operators for these great amenities so as not to impact the respective seasons, Parks spokeswoman Crystal Howard told the New York Post.

The rinks are used by youth skating and hockey programs.

Everyone was absolutely devastated, every kid, their parents, their coaches, Malik Garvin, director of Ice Hockey in Harlem, told CBS. Kids are paying the price for something they had nothing to do with.

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NYC ice rinks to close as city cuts business ties with Trump - Associated Press

As Congress looks to set up an independent outside panel to investigate the Capitol siege, Democrats and Republicans both have pointed to the 9/11 Commission as a model of bipartisan cooperation.

But 20 years later, veterans of the commission's investigation into the 2001 terror attacks worry that it will be challenging to keep politics out of an inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack that led to President Donald Trump's unprecedented second impeachment, on charges he incited the riot.

Trump was acquitted last week. His lawyers argued he wasn't responsible for the violence at the Capitol and against the propriety of convicting a former president. Seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in the 57-43 vote, short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has shared proposed legislation to set up the panel with Republicans after seeking input from lawmakers, relevant committees and leaders of the 9/11 Commission, including former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman who served as co-chair, and Tim Roemer, another former Democratic congressman.

Security forces respond with tear gas after the US President Donald Trump's supporters breached the US Capitol security in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.

In interviews with ABC News, Kean, Hamilton and Roemer said they told Pelosi a successful commission would require appointing members who can avoid the partisan fray, supplying them with adequate resources and providing enough time to investigate on their own timetable, rather than one laid out by Congress or the White House.

"You cannot have people on the commission whose job is to defend the president or defend the speaker," said Kean, a Republican, and chair of the 9/11 Commission. "You've got to have people who follow the facts."

To blunt partisanship on the panel, Kean established a strong relationship with Hamilton and didn't hire any staff who'd recently worked on a political campaign.

The composition of the committee is essential to its success, added Roemer, who has been consulting with Pelosi and her staff over the past two weeks on the drafting of the legislation. Roemer added that the commissioners must have experience in complex areas of policy, from cybersecurity and law enforcement to racial issues and disinformation campaigns.

"You need to pick people who have worked across the aisle and have deep experience in the issue areas involved. The commission will likely be 10 or 11 people, with the president getting to pick the chair and the leadership selecting other people," Roemer said.

The 9/11 Commission faced resistance from the Bush White House as it explored what intelligence was known about the plot before the attack, and it was pressured to conclude its investigation before the 2004 election, Kean recalled.

Pelosi, in a statement on Monday, said the commission would "investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex" relating to "the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement in the National Capitol Region."

At an earlier press conference, Pelosi said the new panel would have "nothing to do with President Trump" but would focus on Capitol security, along with white supremacy and anti-Semitism.

"The mandate, the remit, the purpose section of the legislative needs to be specific, it needs to be precise and it needs to be crystal clear," Roemer said. "It should not be only about how to protect the Capitol complex or how high the walls should be, it should also include what led to attacks and how to strengthen the institutions of our representative democracy."

It's not yet clear whether Republicans will back the speaker's effort. At least 10 Republicans will need to support any proposal in the Senate to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the chamber to pass the legislation.

Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi responds to questions on the creation of a commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, during a news conference in Washington, Feb. 19, 2021.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was noncommittal in a statement to ABC News, and pointed to the commission legislation proposed by House Republicans several weeks ago.

"It is our responsibility to understand the security and intelligence breakdowns that led to the riots on January 6 so that we can better protect this institution and the men and women working inside it," his statement read. "A commission should follow the guidance of Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton to be 'both independent and bipartisan,' and to preserve that integrity it must be evenly split between both parties."

Some of Trump's top allies in Congress have tried to shift blame to Pelosi -- questioning her handling of Capitol security before the attack -- and could bristle at any closer examination of Trump.

"I want to look at what Pelosi knew, when she knew it, what President Trump did after the attack, and on the Senate side, was Senate leadership informed of a threat?" Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on "Fox News Sunday."

"For this to work," Pelosi said during a press conference on Thursday, "it really has to be strongly bipartisan. You have to have subpoena power."

"That is the solution to getting access to people and information in this case," Roemer told ABC News. "Getting access to the material that was out there when President Trump was in office and the cooperation of key witnesses subpoenaing those people who were there. Others may be absolutely willing to come in without a subpoena."

Initial Democratic and Republican proposals for the commission differ on the scope of the inquiry, whether members of Congress could serve on the panel, and whether it would explore issues like online disinformation.

Police clash with supporters of President Donald Trump who breached security and entered the Capitol building in Washington Jan. 06, 2021.

Philip Zelikow, a professor at the University of Virginia who served as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and helped author its bestselling report, told ABC News that the ongoing FBI investigations into Capitol rioters could create "lots of hindrances and potential delays" along with any investigations into Trump's phone call with Georgia's secretary of state.

At least 237 people are facing federal charges stemming from the Capitol riot, according to an ABC News review of charging documents.

"We did mutually benefit from a colossal FBI investigation," he said of the 9/11 Commission. "But the FBI investigation was not in the process of being presented to a grand jury."

John Farmer, a former attorney general of New Jersey who served as senior counsel on the 9/11 Commission, told ABC News that the panel should be able to confer immunity to witnesses in exchange for help, to incentivize cooperation, although that could complicate ongoing criminal investigations and future inquiries into holding people accountable for the attack.

"A judgment will have to be made in some cases whether a full account of what happened on Jan. 6 is more important than individual culpability," Farmer said.

At least seven House and Senate committees also are conducting their own investigations into the attack, seeking records and testimony from senior congressional security officials, the FBI and social media platforms, such as Parler, that authorities say were used by rioters to communicate ahead of the siege.

On Friday, the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center produced records to the House panels as part of their inquiry into what federal intelligence agencies knew about the potential for an attack ahead of Jan. 6, a House committee official told ABC News. The Department of Homeland Security is expected to produce records for the committees in the coming weeks.

Several House and Senate panels plan to hold the first public hearings on the Jan. 6 attack, featuring current and former congressional security officials, next week.

Hamilton, the 9/11 Commission co-chair, said the most difficult work will be making sure that any recommendations the commission ends up making are passed into law.

"There isn't any magic here, no formula, just common sense and the political will to do it," he told ABC News.

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Congress aims to avoid politics with independent Jan. 6 investigation - ABC News

It started with a ride down an escalator in 2015, and escalated rapidly. From the first cries of "rapists" invading our country to dog whistles like "Stand back, stand by," Donald Trump's dangerous delusions of power and control brought this country to the brink of collapse, and everyone who allowed that to happen is an enabler and a collaborator.

From White House cronies and sycophants who shared in Trump's power fantasies and deep contempt for large swaths of Americans, to his equally evil children and Republicans in the Senate led by Mitch McConnell, to America's attorney general, to the doctors at Walter Reed who agreed to lie for the president and to sign non-disclosure agreements, thereby violating their Hippocratic oath, to the ICE bullies who separated infants and children from their parents and incarcerated them in cold, filthy camps, to the former heads of the CDC and FDA who caved after White House pressure, to irresponsible media moguls, they are all responsible for the terrifying threat of autocracy we faced, and the increase in violence that culminated at the U.S. Capitol on Jan.6.

Together, they are responsible for militias that felt emboldened in their militarism and for bad cops who mercilessly shoot to death Black and brown men and women. They are responsible for the resurgent KKK and groups like the Proud Boys. They are responsible for federal courts being packed with ultra-conservative lifetime judges, and a Supreme Court that saw the demure but deadly Any Comey Barrett added to its ranks. In short, they are responsible for the near-demise of democracy.

Adding to why we are on the edge of another Great Depression, and responsible for America's damaged standing in the world, Donald Trump's enablers and collaborators aided and abetted the disasters in our health, educationand infrastructure systems, the filth in our water and the comeback of chemicals in our food. They are responsible for the deaths of almost half a million Americans who died needlessly because the super-spreader in chief just didn't give a damn.

Indeed, they are responsible for the Mussolini moment" we witnessed on the balcony of our dictator's palace, and they, like him, bear the guilt of negligent homicide and crimes against humanity.

They also exemplify the "banality of evil" that philosopher Hannah Arendt warned us about when she reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a major architect of theHolocaust. Eichmann was, he insisted to the court in Jerusalem, simply following orders.

So were White House staff, Secret Service officers who vowed to give their life for the president (but not in a hermetically sealed vehicle),employees of government agencies who didn't speak up or quit their jobs in order to save the country, business moguls who didn't end their major donations to a corrupt fraud, and Fox News, which wouldn't stand up to a lunatic when he blamed everyone else for our disasters and incited violence. So too are the voters who inexplicably still stood with their man in greater numbers the second time around even though everything he does hurts them the most.

Every one of these people is the banality of evil personified. Every one of them became what Arendt called a "leaf blowing in the whirlwind of time." Now every one of them bears responsibility for what could lie ahead.

Of course, some brave souls did stand up to the president. And every one of them did it knowing that they would be punished mightily.Think about those who gave testimony beforeCongress, the lawyers and doctors who wrote letters and petitions, the activists who marched and were willing to suffer the consequences, including injury, arrest and jail time, the Capitol Police who tried to stop a violent coup. They are our national heroes, the ones for whom new monuments should be built.

As for the rest of us, we must remember and own the fact that a great malignancy metastasized within our national body and many of us let it happen. We watched it ravageus and slowly terrorize us. We let it kill people we knew and loved. We looked the other way, always sure that it couldn't get worse.

Now we need to understand that the "silence of one good man" can spell disaster for all good people. Each of us who remained passive as our impending disaster continued might have been the one "good man" who didn't act, didn't speak out, didn't resist, while men like Jeff Sessions, Stephen Millerand Donald Trump insisted that infants be ripped from their mothers' breasts. Men who didn't care that innocent people were dying from gun violence, a plague, hungerand violence, which they fostered. Men who didn't care about pre-existing conditions or elders who rely on Social Security to survive. Men who didn't care that women would be catapulted back to the Dark Ages.

The question is: Why didn't we stop them? Why didn't we act in larger, more effective, timely ways? Why did we let them continue for four devastating years, like the blind, chained inhabitants of Plato's allegorical cave, unable to escape their isolation because, trapped by ignorance and darkness, they couldn't know the truth?

Can we now remove our blinders and see clearly the dawning truth in time to break our silence, reject the banality of evil, refuse to be a leaf blowing in the whirlwind of time?

What awaits us if we do not?

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Escaping the "Mussolini moment": Trump's enablers and the banality of evil - Salon