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It Ain’t Necessarily So
I do not know what really happened in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 . . . and neither do you. First reports are seldom conclusive, often confused, sometimes flat wrong. We live in an environment where people have learned to spin and twist every institution and form of media, seeking to shape our society through our ever more intrusive politics. Not only is history written by the victors, so is the entire current narrative, especially as supposed conservatives have joined the left in enabled a handful of billionaires to use the commanding communications high ground to silence and even drive out of business any effective dissent.
I first heard that Trump supporters had stormed Congress and someone was shot. Then I heard the shot was fired not by a “bitter clinger” with a gun but by a Capitol Police officer. Then I heard Congressman Louie Gohmert call the Sean Hannity radio show. He reported that he was on the phone with the Capital Police the evening of January 5, and was told they had intelligence that Antifa was showing up on January 6 wearing pro-Trump gear. Perhaps so. This too ain’t necessarily so.
Before all this, as I sipped my morning cup of coffee, I listened to Mike Rowe’s latest The Way I Heard It podcast episode, released on January 5. “Episode 181: Off by Roughly Two Trillion” was a thoughtful reflection of uncertainty in our world, occasioned by repeated errors or possibly learning across media, academics, politics, science, and medicine. Take a listen, if you will:
In such uncertainty, how might we judge what is so? Past performance does not necessarily predict future performance. Things change. Yet, we would be willfully blind not to notice the behavior of the very large March for Live every year for decades. We all know that the Tea Party movement, when it was a mass protest movement, was known for its tidiness and peaceful conduct. We all know, or should know, that Trump rallies have been boisterous but peaceful affairs.
We know, by contrast, that the left’s street wing has engaged in organized violence for decades. They refined their techniques and tactical skills over repeated operations against economic summits. The “mostly peaceful protests” of this past summer were vehicles for small, disciplined violent groups, coordinated by secure communications and supported with logistics and transportation. The small violent elements used the mass of peaceful people as cover.
False flag operations are a real thing. Disrupting and discrediting peaceful movements by infiltrating with violent actors and instigators is not mere fiction. In this instance, on Epiphany 2021, we just do not know.
AND. Whatever the truth of this day may be, there is a lesson that those who would resist creeping or rushing socialism must learn. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and early 1960s was fiercely self-disciplined. It was not a bunch of volunteers just showing up in a mass. There was real organization and internal discipline to prevent the white supremacist Democrats and J. Edgar Hoover from discrediting them with violent acts caused by infiltrators or by hotheads. Civil disobedience is hard work. Conservatives/populists have stunk at consistent civic engagement and at sustained, organized action. This must change, and not in the form of another grift, another boondoggle with high-paid executives and staffs.
It appears that the breach of Congress occurred before President Trump finished speaking, miles away from the breach. Not that this inconvenient truth will matter, if it is the truth. No, those on the commanding heights have spent the last four years subverting the last election, while claiming their opposition was all very principled and not at all hatred of the great mass of American voters who produced the “deplorable” election result, that must be overcome by any means. Some of these, claiming to be conservative or Republican, have played the game of diplomacy:
Diplomacy frequently consists in soothingly saying “Nice doggie” until you have a chance to pick up a rock.
—Walter Trumbull
We are assured this is a matter of principle. We are told this is craven self-service. AND. It ain’t necessarily so.
On Twelfth Night, I offered a playlist for the twelve days of Christmas, ending with Epiphany. After Epiphany 2021’s rumors and reports, one very secular song comes to mind:
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Published in Politics
A-yup.
Senators that were going to back Trump are now “backing down after the events of today.”
Seems like there’s a whole lot more to this story.
They’re also meeting in the room where a girl was just murdered hours ago. But vote counts can be stopped for water main breaks. It doesn’t seem like anyone is going to learn anything from today. Things will get worse.
And that’s the point. Disrupt it all. Trump is getting the Julius Caesar treatment.
You are right, Clifford. There’s a lot we don’t know about who was involved. That’s not the issue to me. Trump’s actions and words during the last couple of months are the issue. What happened is on him; he’s essentially the one who provided cover, no matter who terrorized the Capitol.
I am really shocked that people are so quick to rush to accept the media’s foregone conclusions and their prophesies that appear to have been fulfilled today. The fact is, I think the press made this happen. Wow, how they have put pressure on people in many different subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
I think it is because I see the Yahoo news feed every day that I am very skeptical about the reports of what happened today. I’m also thinking back to the accusations of racism that were directed at Donald Trump because of something he said or didn’t say in the Charleston demonstrations. Then there was that kid who was accused of saying something awful at some demonstration. Thank goodness some bystander caught the exchange on a personal smartphone. The kid is now suing the press for purposefully misleading the public. But how quick Republicans were to accept the first stories told by the mainstream media! You’d think they’d have learned by now.
The way I see it is that this was a setup that got built up over the last six weeks by the press. They kept saying he wasn’t going to leave office peacefully–which he is doing, by the way–and now Antifa is trying to prove those allegations correct. I’m just guessing here, but my notion certainly fits with the surreal way events have unfolded throughout the past four years.
The effort to get rid of Donald Trump at any price, an effort that was engaged in vigorously at the top of government and the political parties, has proven more frustrating to Trump’s supporters–those poor saps who know the bills are coming for Biden’s promises and our rejoining the Paris climate accords–than the anti-Trump forces imagined. I think they went too far this time.
I hate injustice. I think I’m seeing a lot of it today.
Thank you.
Not just a real thing, false flag operations have been at work in every campaign element against Trump. It follows the maxim that whatever the Left says Trump folks are doing, that is what the Left is doing.
I really really wish I were not the only sane person on the planet who has read the Democratic Party Platform this year. I have never seen so many lies and distortions in any party platform and campaign in my entire political life.
It is one of the most stressful things a person can ever go through to watch someone be accused of doing something that person did not do.
The things that Donald Trump was accused of this past year alone by the Democrats were wild. I will never get over it.
I’m not at all surprised people got overemotional today.
I think the Democrats may have created a martyr. If I am feeling this way, others are too.
I’m anxiously awaiting a report from Michael Yon.
Putting some more thought into this after watching some MSM…..
The overreaction to this is getting old already. Yes, one person died, but other than that the mob knocked some chairs over and maybe broke a window. I’ve had rowdier BBQ’s. And unless you displayed proportionate outrage at the riots of last summer, I’m calling you out for the fraud you are. I’m already hearing excuses that the BLM riots were “different.” And people in Portland “are very passionate about their causes.” Today for some reason is so much worse. Yeah, screw private property and innocent life. But protect our holy state at all costs.
Just when my I think my hatred for these people can’t get any worse.
I said the same thing about @exjon on that awful post he made earlier.
I expected that a lot of what we are hearing is overreaction.
I want to know why that woman was shot by the police. What was she doing that required shooting her? Sounds like she was just standing there.
I’m not sure what President Trump could have done to both seriously press the issue of ballot box stuffing, low or high tech, and prevent violence that does not match his last five years of experience with supporters in large gatherings. This is especially vexing as we saw the Georgia Republican officials give in to Stacey Abrams well before the election, setting a pattern for weakening election security that will surely now be replicated around the country. Instead of withdrawing from the consent decree between November and the runoff election, they dug in their heels on agreeing with the Democrats preferred rules.
Republican voters saw the experiment run once, saw their state leaders refuse to change the rules back to the letter of state law, and showed up in lower numbers for what they rightly saw as a pre-rigged election. Anyone still laughing at Abrams’ claim she is the real winner of the last gubernatorial race? She has just reshaped the U.S. Senate for her party. She has proven a more effective political leader than “Governor” Kemp.
But if she was standing there without a mask, well…
We do not know, and likely never will have fair certainty. An article shows Capital Police did not use body cameras in 2015, and I find nothing showing a change in policy.
I operate on worst-case scenarios, so I’m assuming the vast majority of these guys were misguided Trump supporters.
After several months of celebrated domestic terrorism on ostensible behalf of a racist hate group, I just give very few fracks about a bunch of unarmed morons occupying Capitol Building at this point, and am most concerned that the Left and the GOP Establishment are eagerly using this as a Reichstag fire. I do think that Trump has been somewhat reckless with some of his recent rhetoric, and can understand people becoming exhausted with him, but nothing that justifies Jon Gabriel’s repulsive article.
At those gatherings, he appeared in charge, and when he poked at people, he let the crowds know that he knew what was going on. I never felt he was trying to incite them; rather, he was trying to inspire them.
The point for me is that with all his ranting over the last two months, did it do any good? The courts ignored him, the legislatures ignored him, the governors ignored him. That isn’t his fault. But unless you believe that an investigation of election processes would not be planned without his protests, what good did it do?
My hope is that the Republicans at least will make sure that a fair and transparent investigation of elections is conducted, and that new procedures, rules and laws are enacted. If not, everything is lost.
It’s the Republicans.
So everything is lost.
I watched the video and I dont recommend it. The woman appeared to be cornered by the crowd. It didn’t seem like they were forcing her or anything, it was just a big crowded group and she happened to be near the wall. Then she just drops from the gunshot.
It is really weird. I want to know what happened, and I’m kind of surprised that we’re not hearing more. Doesn’t this fit their narrative? A girl got killed in a violent Trump rally. That’s fake news gold. Why aren’t they all over this? The whole thing feels off.
There may well be another blue ribbon commission, and the results will be the same as every other blue ribbon commission. The time to act was in 2017. McConnell and the gang were busy facilitating the Russian hoax to weaken the president they desperately did not want, so they were hardly going to contradict Democrats and actually impose real identification requirements and ballot security.
Yes. I agree.
The time to conduct an audit was last month. Not months from now when nobody cares and nobody can do anything. There is only one reason why they won’t conduct an audit.
A transparent audit is something that actually could go a long way towards healing the country, which Biden and the Dems keep saying they want to do. But no, these people are filth and want nothing less than complete subjugation.
I wish you could be right but I have no confidence
I heard that in all the speeches in the house floor. So weird. If you copied these words, and posted anonymous, you’d think they were nearly all in agreement.
Boss has spoken.
We will never know what really happened today. Unfortunately what we will be told will in no way reflect the truth but will be what the popular culture believes. It will be Trumps fault and all his races white followers that showed up today, stormed the streets with blood in their eye and hate in their soul.
If anybody was foolish enough to go today they better keep it secret and off social media if they know what best for them.
While I do not generally agree with your default posture of cynicism, your last sentence is sadly on point.
Ashli Babbitt was not available to comment.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/woman-shot-and-killed-in-storming-of-us-capitol-named-as-ashli-babbitt/ar-BB1cyoYh?c=10654320709832488692%252C7840040449682147769
That article says it was a capitol policeman that shot her. I’ve watched the video and that was no accident. It was murder. I wonder if any investigation will ever be done?
I am relieved to know Trump has announced he is making way for the New Administration.
Why? Because I am certain that he would be deader than a Kennedy in Dealey Plaza if he didn’t move out.
I am grateful he was in office for four years. Something I never believed would happen.
Just in case the NT crowd happens on this discussion, here are just some of his accomplishments undertaken during his first year in office. (Source: Newsweek)
100 percent vote by UN Security Council to sanction North Korea.
41 percent decline in illegal southern border crossings
97,482 illegal immigrant arrests, 70 percent convicted of additional crimes, 52,169 expelled
Adopted a resolute policy on Afghanistan
Advocated for practical tertiary education, to bring back trade schools
Advocated for skills-based immigration policies
American companies now expanding rather than shipping jobs overseas
Announced sanctions targeting Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
Appointed a Transportation Secretary who is modernizing air traffic control
Appointed an Education Secretary who is correcting abuses of Title IX
Appointed an EPA administrator who has rescinded over 30 regulations
Appointed an FDA Director to facilitate generic drug competition
Constructed test models of the border fence
Convinced Japan and South Korea to increase defense spending
Convinced NATO members to honor minimum financial commitments
Decertified Iranian nuclear treaty and sent it to Senate as constitutionally required
Designated North Korea as a state-sponsor of terrorism
Eliminated prohibition on interstate health insurance sales
Ended abuses of the student loan forgiveness program
Ended forced provision of contraception by Catholic nunneries
Ended requirement for state funding of Planned Parenthood
Ended research into Y2K preparedness
Ended rule requiring employers to report pay data by gender and race
Expanded school-choice efforts
FCC has begun to dismantle unnecessary Internet “Neutrality” regulations
Foreign firms building plants and creating jobs in the U.S.
Improved rules of engagement for military in combat situations
Initiated resistance “sue and settle” tactics against EPA
Initiated sanctions on Venezuelan dictatorship
Introduced regulatory budgeting requiring agencies to rescind 2 rules to issue a new one
ISIS bombing ramped up from about 20 to 500 or more airstrikes per week
ISIS ground campaign intensified; Raqqa captured, its fighters surrendering in large numbers
Issued a National Security Strategy
Kate’s Law passed House now pending in Senate
Leveraged U.S. contribution to UN budget to force 5 percent budget cut; reduce staffs
NLRB reversed rule making indirect employee control sufficient to be “joint employees”
Nominated 60 judges, 21 confirmed, none yet denied
Nominated new Fed chief
Nominated one Supreme Court judge, who was confirmed
Obtained release of Aya Hijazi after 3 years in Egyptian prison
Obtained release of Caitlan Coleman & husband from Haqqani
Obtained release of UCLA basketball players from China
Raised awareness of Opioid addiction crisis
Recognized Jerusalem as Israeli capital, announcing plan to move U.S. embassy there
Reduced excess size of 2 national parks in Utah
Reduced permanent staff in all Cabinet agencies except VA, HS & Interior
Reduced White House staff by 110
Appointed an Interior Secretary to improve forest management and expand users of public lands
Approved Keystone pipeline
Called for international support of Iranian protesters
Canceled school lunch program that failed to force children to eat unpopular foods
Initiated resistance “sue and settle” tactics against EPA