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The January 6 Political Farce Excludes Key Witnesses
If the Democratic National Committee and Black Lives Matter were signed to Netflix to co-produce a soap opera, the result would be pretty much what the first few days of the January 6th Committee have been. The first day of the hearings featured more weeping men than the Stonewall Inn on the day Judy Garland died. There were also accusations that protesters were hurling racist slurs at the Capitol police, and surely the Capitol Police are withholding the video of this only because it would be too inflammatory.
Liz Cheney, morphing into a combination of Madame DeFarge and Lucille Bluth (but without the late Jessica Walter’s brilliant comedic timing), demands “every minute of that day in the White House: every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during and after the attack.” So much for this not being about Trump.
By rejecting Republican members who might have offered independent perspectives, who might have deviated from the Official Narrative, the Democrats made it clear that this was going to be an exercise, not in truth-seeking, but in narrative reinforcement. The absence of any potential dissent on the committee is one indication of its partisan political nature, but it is not the only one. If the committee were really interested in getting to the truth, then there is one group of witnesses who would be expected to testify, but that is conspicuously absent from any planned hearings.
The protesters themselves.
In order to understand “what happened,” the actions and intentions of the protesters themselves are a key piece of the puzzle. It would make sense to ask why they were there, what their intentions were, and what they saw on that day.
But they are not going to be interviewed, and it’s not hard to figure out why.
There is an Official Narrative in place, reinforced by the state-adjacent media: The protesters are domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol and threatened the lives of everyone inside in order to stage a violent coup that was worse than 9-11, Pearl Harbor, and Season 8 of Game of Thrones combined.
If they were to talk to the protesters, a different narrative might emerge. Instead of dangerous terrorists carrying out a violent coup, they might be shown as ordinary Americans frustrated with a political elite that no longer represents them, that actively works against them in favor of globalist oligarchs. The public might come to understand and sympathize with them.
That cannot be allowed to happen. And so the people who “stormed the Capitol” that day sit in solitary confinement, indefinitely, without trials, mostly on non-violent “trespassing” charges, while the FBI hounds their families and associates like they were all Richard Jewell. Politicians pontificate on the threat of dangerous “domestic terrorism” and propose – unsurprisingly – a vastly expanded surveillance state and new Government powers to counter it.
Once again, it’s the inverse of the media’s treatment of BLM/Antifa rioters, whose Official Narrative was that they were as brave and noble as the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and their protests … where buildings were burned, people were murdered, and businesses smashed and looted… were “mostly peaceful.” You seldom heard the media speak to actual Antifas because that would likewise have imperiled the narrative.
They also told us riots were the language of the unheard. Maybe they were right.
Published in General
Totally using this.
Not worse than Season 8 of GoT! Our country is doomed…doomed I say.
They’re going to make us wish it really was a coup.
I’d like to hear from the FBI and the many other Intel orgs on what they new before that day. I would also like to hear from the Capitol Police on how they used that information and why the nation’s 15th largest police force failed to protect a single building.
I want to know why the mayor denied the President the extra law enforcement he requested, and why Nancy Pelosi denied him the extra capitol police he requested.
Put Nancy in the hot seat and have some real Republicans question her. This hearing is a farce.
As for asking the FBI or other Intel orgs, they’d just lie, so why bother. They lie. They always lie. And even when they’re found to be lying, there is no punishment for them. We are ruled by criminals.
Is that the Red Wedding? Is that the right event? I only picked up a bit of Game of Thrones through cultural osmosis.
What kind of serious investigation would not look into the root causes of an event, one of which was clearly a failure of security?
Worse. Next time it will be.
I’m (probably? certainly?) going to mess up by playing pretend lawyer but my guess is that because the FBI is actually investigating this and actively arresting people over this, they can’t actually say anything meaningful or not already publicly available since it would be catnip for a good defense attorney. Just my guess.
Aside from the fact that the commission is a farce, it isn’t properly or only a farce because Dems see it as a chance to hurt Republicans (partisans fight, that’s normal). It must necessarily be a farce because you can’t ask the FBI what networks they are investigating because then those people would just delete their facebook accounts and throw their cellphones into a lake. The important questions can’t be asked because it would be admission against interest.
I think that there are certain ways of asking carefully worded questions that would yield relevant info, if not necessarily everything you’d like. “How many FBI agents and/or FBI informants were present both at and inside the Capitol?” does not really reveal specifics, but is still relevant. “Was the FBI forewarned about potential violent conduct on the day?” An honest investigation would want to know this.
As I say above, you can ask, but you won’t get an honest answer from the FBI, or any of the intelligence agencies. They lie. They always lie. They never pay any consequences for their lies.
If individuals were actually plotting seditious activities, they would not have been within a hundred miles of the Capitol on January 6, not if they’re smart. For that matter, they wouldn’t be planning actions for that day either. It’s better to strike like lightning on a cloudless day, than to pick a date with any symbolic significance.
I agree. Also if they were actually plotting seditious activities for that day, they would have shown up armed. (they would have had guns, but this group even lacked frozen water bottles, pallets of bricks, fireworks, laser pointers, pee bottles ect) What the Capital Police had to deal with on 1/6 was not appropriate but it was less then what the police in my mid-sized City dealt with last summer.
If they were actually trying to over throw the government they may actually have been able to to it (kind of). Based on the response of the Capital Police to what actually happened, a number of actually armed citizens with malice could have opened fire and likely caused actual harm, to elected officials.
It was the last season when the battle commenced at the royal seat and the entire city was epically destroyed in the most mundane and pathetic series finale anyone could have unimaginatively come up with.
Thanks for that. More mundane and pathetic than the new Battlestar Galactica finale? Let’s vote to abandon all our technology and start anew on this life sustaining rock. It was a metaphor for the Obama voters though, voting for self-destruction.
The heroine of the series (ultimately crowned queen), depicted as the people’s queen, brought her foreign army and destroyed her city’s inhabitants with dragon fire… and it was all good.
The BSG finale inspired me… to end my scifi epic in exactly the opposite way.
My mistake was in thinking that Capitol security was handled by adults.
As Jack Reacher said, “Then he died of shame.”
You are wrong on several counts. You said: “And so the people who “stormed the Capitol” that day sit in solitary confinement, indefinitely, without trials, mostly on non-violent “trespassing” charges…”
I suggest that you look at the data base of the people who has been charged at: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases I did a quick analysis of the 112 people whose names end in A, B or C.
Of them, 75 were not locked up. 71 of them were released on their own or personal recognizance. 1 was on home detention which is surely much nicer than being locked up. 2 were on a high intensity supervision program. Again, much better than being locked up. 1 was released on a bond.
37 of them were locked up. 2 of the 37 were undergoing competency hearings. Again, much nicer to be in a psychiatric hospital than being locked up in jail. Of the remaining 35, 3 of them were arrested in the two days, so there had not yet been time for them to have a release hearing.
I don’t recall seeing anyone being charged only with mere trespassing. Most of them had been charged with a number of offenses, including but not limited to “violent entry,” “disorderly conduct, ” “assault,” and “possession of an unregistered firearm.”
They are not being held “indefinitely.” There are “speedy trial” rules, which while being relaxed during the pandemic were never repealed.
They may not be smart.
I have no sympathy to the fools who invaded the capital on Jan 6. If they trespassed and vandalized property – I hope they get charged.
What will be ignored by corporate media is those who pushed Russia Collusion for 4 years. This was the focus of the entire congress and political media for 3 years. The fact that the Steele dossier was garbage and the DOJ knew it but pushed this tripe shows the real fight is between the permanent bureaucracy and rest of us. Like Obama’s IRS, these people will escape with a tax payer funded pension
Maybe they can lose that, if the economy comes crashing down because of their BS.
Just might be worth it.
I will agree up to a point – the Capitol Police officer should also be charged for the murder of Ashli Babbitt. He should have testified at these hearings, but since they are a sham, I’m not surprised . . .
Oh, my naive friend! If/When the economy comes crashing down, they’ll be fine. Government pensions will never be on the cutting block. It’s we proles who will suffer the most and shoulder the burden.
I have a better idea (being a former gubmint employee myself). We could eliminate the deep state by eliminating Federal government employment as a full-time occupation (other than the military). People from the private sector would sign up for a limited number of years (pick a number: 8, 12?). After that, they return to the private sector permanently. All normal benefits would be in effect for the duration of their employment, and when they leave, they keep the retirement portion and have a set amount of transition time with medical insurance. This would eliminate government pensions in addition to the deep state. Okay, everyone shoot holes in Stad’s Grand Design . . .
They should receive the same punishment the protesters who invaded the capitol during the Kavanaugh hearings got.
$50 fine, immediate release.
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/08/645497667/the-resistance-at-the-kavanaugh-hearings-more-than-200-arrests
Certainly Federal pensions won’t, but many state and local pensions might be. I remember reading anecdotal stories of some towns reneging on pensions for their retired employees because they came up short on revenue. It wasn’t necessarily their fault, but when a factory in a small town closes, it has a huge impact . . .
Did you hear that some European governments are moving their pensions to “green” investments, even though those under-perform the market? Eventually taxpayers will be expected to make up the shortfall for the unhappy government workers.