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Where Were You on June 9, 2022?
On the ninth day of the sixth month, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Two, the American House of Representatives convened a television show about a political protest some years earlier. The clips from this show will be used as “facts” for elections in 2022 and 2024. These clips will be used by Democrat campaigns, of course, but more to the point, they will be used by the state-run media to condition voters and vote managers. The more people in on the next steal, the less work each plotter involved must do.
I cannot rate the show very highly. It has terrible pacing and features weak performances from the usual crew of identical new faces who for some reason keep showing up on our screens. It wasn’t like this in the old days. It used to be that a show needed some strong performances and tight writing to get popular. There was a kind of platinum age of television heralded by the beloved but now-unwatchable “Babylon 5,” which was a watershed in long-arc, multi-season plotting of a broadcast series. Shows followed in different genres: “The Sopranos,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Dexter,” “Game of Thrones,” “Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul.” This current offering from the House is poorly done. It’s amazing it got greenlit.
I never watched the Sopranos until these days. I’m midway through the fourth Season.
Published in General
“Irrelevant” for what purpose, is the question. I agree it’s irrelevant as to criminal charges related to the breaching of the Capitol. It’s entirely relevant as to whether he was derelict in his response to the breaching of the Capitol.
There’s always been a lot of mind-reading when it comes to criticizing Trump. But there’s never been any need to do mind reading. Trump was about as transparent a president as we’ve ever had. He didn’t hide his thoughts about anything.
Agreed–he was convinced the election was stolen from him, and he was willing to do what it took to prevail. He may not have incited the mob, but he would have been perfectly happy if they had succeeded in taking over the Capitol and preventing the proceedings. He appears not to have cared if Pence had been captured and killed by the mob.
And that’s disgusting enough.
And you just did mind-reading again.
Then perhaps you can enlighten me as to what this transparent president is all about. I based my thoughts on things he (apparently) said while the mob was in the Capitol. I qualify my statement because I am basing it on what we have been told the testimony will reveal. It’s possible the testimony will not support the claim. If that happens, I’ll revise my view. But the combination of a failure to act, plus comments commending the mob is transparent enough to support my opinion.
I hate the language of privilege, but so-called “conservatives” who are enraptured by this show trial and think it’s a great thing are the essence of privilege.
Meanwhile the regular citizen . . .
The January 6th “Insurrection!” is a luxury religion.
This is stupid take for $500, Alex.
how about this: people were encouraged to peacefully protest the ACCEPTANCE of the state slates, believing that Pence had the authority to send back contested slates to state legislators so they could adjudicate their own slates.
Given the history of protestors being allowed into the gallery, the protestors were not suspicious of being let in to the Capitol while violent infiltrators were fomenting a riot in other parts of the Capitol grounds.
You can’t say that didn’t happen or that that is an unreasonable interpretation of events because this hearing is a SHOW trial with NO hearing from the defense.
Terrifying.
Come on–this is not the only footage, and these are not the only ones who entered the Capitol. As I noted previously, the evidence (yet to be presented) suggests several types of groups. First, an organized contingent that breached the Capitol while Trump was still talking. This was then followed (apparently) by a more spontaneous group–some of whom were very peaceful (see above), some of whom were not.
Do you take pleasure in leveling insults (stupid take for $500, Alex)? This addresses (apparently) part of the group that breached the Capitol–but only part.
And I know there have been many comments on this post, but I’ve made clear my view–this is a production for show, and I hate it. Get cameras out of the congressional chamber. Stop the grandstanding. Yes, it’s one-sided. Ok–fine. Maybe after the election, we’ll get rebuttal testimony. But we don’t have to pretend the whole thing was a hoax.
I heard an interview the ranking GOP member on the House management committee (or whatever group is in charge with security) and he promised that he would lead an investigation into the security failures next January. No doubts or caveats.
Fair enough. The whole idea of provocateurs and Ray Epps whatnot goes by the board, so we all get tarred as toothless Trump-worshippers instead of Americans with a legit beef against the mutiny and coup. Thank you for your balance — I appreciate that you see different factions within the mass of people. The approved answer is that they were all vicious Trump thugs.
There’s more to the story, but the parts that are damaging to the DMC are simply memory-holed. I know I keep harping on Benghazi, but that is a clear-cut example of the quality of “investigation” we may expect. To me, the only thing unusual about the Benghazi cover-up was how blatant it was. This one had a lot more horsepower at work making things disappear, or not appear in the first place. It’s obvious that the Pentagon, among other places, was in turmoil. You would expect this when the shadow government is forced to move against the legit government before they were ready. I don’t expect to convince anybody with what amounts to “you cannot see it — that proves the cover up!” So I’m not trying to convince anybody.
Just setting a marker. It’s not crazy to think that the election was stolen, and that a lot was crooked before that happened — in order for that to happen. It’s becoming crazy to keep saying that 2+2=4 when we know the approved answer is 5, and enforcement is tightening. But this is not really responsive to your polite reply. Just setting some context as well, I suppose.
But we don’t have to adopt the narrative. “Not an insurrection” does not mean Jan. 6 was all just a cool protest.
I tend to agree–the Democrats are playing a dangerous political game by hyping these hearings under these circumstances. The hearings will likely backfire on them for the 2022 election, but they’re desperate and hoping against hope the hearings will reverse the coming tide. I just don’t see that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 will have any effect on this next election when inflation is raging and Biden is completely incompetent.
I think the root cause, based on tidbits said here and there, is that crazy Nancy Pelosi was worried that if she let the military provide security, that Trump would use them to execute a coup. First, she watches too many movies. Second, the National Guard is not the military. Third, the National Guard reports to the Gov. of Maryland. Fourth, if the military wanted to take over Congress, you can’t prevent it by not inviting them in like with vampires. Our leaders are old and stupid.
I am curious as to how you know what Trump did or did not do when the rioting occurred. Have you seen the FOIA documents retrieved by Judicial Watch that showed the Capitol Police were at half-strength on Jan 6? Is that Trump’s fault? What do you think that the President should have done that you know he didn’t do? Why aren’t you calling for the impeachment of Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats for encouraging the riots of 2020 that actually killed people and destroyed multiple billions of dollars in property? I understand that you don’t like Trump, but you title yourself a lawyer. Do you have any sense of even handed judgement? Did you ever feel your country’s existence was threatened on Jan 6? Do you experience moments where you jump when you see your shadow?
Wow–if she thought that (and you certainly may be right), that’s really, really sad.
But what does that mean, to be “derelict” in his response. If it is not criminal, nor now impeachable (he can not be removed from office as he is out of the office) then it is purely a political question, would you vote for this person.
In basically all cases where we have a “crisis” after the crisis passes we look back at how our elected officials and bureaucrats handled the issues. There are always, in almost every case, things that should have been done different or better. Our leaders are often derelict in their responses to things.
As a political question this whole thing does not matter. People vote in their own self interest, whether financial or in rarer cases deeply held issues (abortion, guns ect.) Most people were not impacted by Jan 6 at all. It did not happen where they live and was possibly over before they even knew it happened. The events of Jan 6 did not have any lasting effect on the country, the government was not over thrown. People will vote on inflation, gas prices and the economy.
The whole thing lasted like 3 hours. People are not going to vote or pay any attention to the argument that a 3 hour event that had no lasting impact, could have been over in 2 hours if Trump spoke more forcefully or mobilized the national guard more quickly.
Having taken the time to go back and watch the beginning of is show trial dog and pony show, I will add this since there are so many concert concepts being thrown around by terms like “possible”, “apparently”, “ongoing” and a simple-minded pleb might as well make an observation or two. Nothing in Liz Cheney’s should remarks should give confidence this committee proving anything with any measure of conclusion. The bottom line will always be did Trump ever tell those rioters to do any of the things which we all agree deserve punishment. The answer to that will remain “No”. She left plenty of room with open-ended language such as “lit a fire”, etc. And she certainly softened the expectations with how things we “ongoing” and references to what they had was not yet a “complete set of information”.
This much more a direct attack on our Constitution and republic than anything Trump did or said that day, being a complete jerk or not. At the end all the haters will “probably” be left with another empty bag to add to all the others
It is designed to affect the next two elections cycles and inhibit political speech. Beyond that is theater for the gullible and predisposed who are set to willingly follow Liz Cheney back to the time when the patricians of the GOP felt completely unanswerable to the party’s plebs.
Good point–I should be more clear. I don’t know, nor do any of us know, exactly what happened. We are all forming opinions based upon reports.
Here’s my basis (and it is why I keep inserting qualifiers like allegedly): Congresswoman Cheney stated that evidence will show that President Trump did these particular things on the 6th (that is, refused to act, despite people begging him to act, affirmed the mob action, etc.). I assume she has spoken testimony from people present with Trump, as well as text messages, emails, etc. If she doesn’t and she’s lying, then I’ll revise my opinion. At this point, however, based on her proffer of the testimony to come and what actually did happen on the 6th, I suspect the evidence will show that Trump was derelict in his duties.
I could answer your questions, but I’m afraid you were largely being rhetorical. I will answer just two. First, I do believe I have a sense of even-handed judgment and my comments (I hope) show that.
Second, I did not “ever feel [my] country’s existence was threated on Jan. 6”.
You seem to forget…Trump was banned on social media. There is some question as to whether or not Trump requested National Guard troops. He perhaps never expected a riot by his supporters. But that would be giving the President way too much credit, I suppose.
Yes. This is the real thrust. The Democrats and the GOP Establishment see eye-to-eye on this. Business as usual, forty years of Democrat ownership of Congress with Republicans enjoying the perks of being second but not last.
I don’t recall Trump riling up any supporters. What I remember is the flood of unseemly ballot processing videos; and the vote counts changing on TV with the exact number of votes being taken away from Trump and accounted to Beiden; and the coincidence of, what, five close states that Trump appeared to be winning suddenly closing down at midnight, only to have more workers come in and process ballots on the sly. Things like that.
You may have been riled up by Trump, on the other hand.
These are good points, and I generally agree with them as general principles.
Regarding Donald Trump, however, although I voted for him in 2020, his actions following the election have led me to the place where I do not plan to vote for him again. If he is the Republican nominee in 2024, I will sit the presidential election out (and pray that God will have mercy on us and provide the least bad option, whatever that may be).
IF! If? A year and a half later, and we don’t know whether Trump caused an “insurrection”?
Remember, it’s not an investigation. It’s a show trial. It’s PR. It’s campaigning. It’s propaganda.
It’s closer to the end of representative democracy than you think, and it isn’t Trump that’s doing this.
I have my opinions–but I’m not privy to the evidence. All we get is leaks and unnamed sources, etc.
I also think the hearings are mostly a PR stunt–one that will probably backfire on the Democrats.
My opinion–in case you’re asking–Trump did not cause an insurrection. He behaved badly at times and in ways I’ve already gone on at too much length about. But based on everything I’ve heard and read, he did not cause an insurrection.
Cheney has already used selectively-edited video and chop quotes from the President to further her case. You can read about that earlier in this thread.
This dishonesty should cause all thinking persons to reject this charade in its entirety.
The unthinking . . . well, that’s on them.
The problem with this is that Ms. Cheney offered what is pretty analogous to an opening statement in Court. That is not a great way to decide what is or is not true. All over the country this week in numerous court rooms a prosecutors and plaintiff’s attorneys are telling juries “Our evidence will show…..” then a defense attorney will get up and say “Our evidence will show…”
Each side is convinced that the facts will prove their case. In every case one of those lawyers is wrong. The jury does not believe that the facts presented actually prove the argument made in the opening statement. It is irrelevant that Ms. Cheney states that the evidence will show. What matters is what the evidence actually is and how the jury (voters) view the evidence.
Do you give any consideration to the character and motive of a person who has been politically against Trump since he blasted her father and GW Bush for the Iraq War? She has supported both previously unsuccessful attempted impeachments, and yet you still are allowing her to enact another show trial based on some supposed evidence that she will produce. It’s ok for Cheney to be wrong, it’s only Trump that she is trying to destroy. But in the meantime, by using the DOJ and FBI to hunt down Trump supporters, it is our country that she is really destroying.
This is what’s disgusting, that anyone would try to credibly phrase this accusation.
And in all of those other cases there will actually be a countering defense argument.