J6 Committee public hearings

[Friskyfrog]

Starting a new thread on the J6 committee hearings beginning this evening so it can be found more easily than adding to the election thread. I’m sure you are all eagerly anticipating the witty and insightful commentary I shall produce.

We have pizza on the way. 45 minutes to go.

[Friskyfrog]

As these get underway, I’d just like to point out that George Takei just liked one of my tweets.

[frogtwang]

Oh myyy!

[frogtwang]

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[Friskyfrog]

I approve of the Bill Barr bullshit video as an opening shot.

on a separate note, fuck Bill Barr.

[Friskyfrog]

Wow, those videos.

So far, I’m impressed, especially with how they’ve used clips of Trump people speaking under oath. Makes it much harder to dismiss, IMO.

[Duquesne Frog]

Wow, those videos.

So far, I’m impressed, especially with how they’ve used clips of Trump people speaking under oath. Makes it much harder to dismiss, IMO.

In the post-truth world, there is nothing that can't be dismissed.

[Friskyfrog]

Apparently Fox is airing Tucker Carlson without commercials like they’re scared viewers will flip away and see some of the hearings.

[Friskyfrog]

So biggest revelations tonight?

I’m thinking it’s new info that Republican leaders tried to get pardons for their involvements.

I think the new details about the Proud Boys was noteworthy, especially that they headed to the Capitol and never to the rally.

I think the direct testimony of the police officer had a lot of emotional impact (showing her getting injured, her talking about slipping on blood, etc)

The timeline with graphics was helpful

[RSK]

Fox, it should be noted, is carrying it on their main network.



I guess I am just getting cynical, but Im having a hard time getting worked up over this. No matter what they uncovered, it is still going to end up being teams and shit. A move to Belize to open a conveinience store selling cigarettes and condoms to the tourists looks better every day. Wish i didnt feel that way.

[pcf]

You'll never get away from it. The Proud Boys love Belize.

[Friskyfrog]

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[Friskyfrog]

It’s funny ‘cause her dad shot somebody in the face…

[Friskyfrog]

So biggest revelations tonight?

I’m thinking it’s new info that Republican leaders tried to get pardons for their involvements.

I think the new details about the Proud Boys was noteworthy, especially that they headed to the Capitol and never to the rally.

I think the direct testimony of the police officer had a lot of emotional impact (showing her getting injured, her talking about slipping on blood, etc)

The timeline with graphics was helpful

Oh also, Trump saying “Pence deserves this”. Damn, that is one hardcore narcissist.

[NFFrog]

Didn't watch as there isn't enough sand in my life's hourglass to waste on days of hearings. In reading over things, I agree with FF--a politician petitioning the WH for a pardon is pretty hard to spin. Though I'm sure they'll try to obfuscate by saying it was just to protect them from those nasty, corrupt, power-mad dems, not any actual wrong-doing.

Oh...and I read above that Fox collected no ad revenue last night. So that's a plus as well.

Gardened all day, and still have to outfit my boat. Should summer ever arrive, I want to be set.

[Duquesne Frog]

There has, not surprisingly, been a lot of revisitation of Nixon and Watergate that I've been watching and listening to. Based on my listening, the most significant difference between Nixon and Trump was the fact that eventually, and it took quite a bit of time, a significant portion of the GOP turned on Nixon. Eventually, enough of them came to the conclusion that to stick with Nixon was to lose political power, and significant number of actual in office and wanting to stay in office Republicans pushed Nixon out. And once that happened, Nixon had enough sense of shame to see it was time to go. Not that he wasn't an epically narcistic, paranoid, nasty man, just like Trump. But he hadn't had the opportunity to learn the lesson Trump has ... if you tell your supporters that you don't give a shit about all the horrible things you did and you did them because the other side is going to do even more horrible things, you can literally get away with anything.

Nixon's failure was that, eventually, he admitted he did something wrong. And the funny thing is that the wrong thing that drug him down was WAY down on the list of terrible things he did ... he subverted LBJ's efforts to come to a peace deal to undermine Humphrey's election prospects, he bombed Cambodia, ran roughshod over the constitutional rights of those he viewed his political opponents. But he got nailed for covering up a stupid and ill-conceived burglary of the Democratic Election HQ that he did not approve.

Trump's wrongdoing, while arguably not as morally bad as killing untold numbers of innocent Cambodians and extending a terrible war so that he could get the chance to claim that he ended it, is certainly worse than covering up a botched raid on a political opponent. But I guess kinda like the situation with Cawthorn, in our system, it's usually not the really terrible things you say or do that bring you down, it's the dumb, embarrassing thing that makes the people you work with look bad.

[Boston Frog]

Nixon didn't have a cult-like following in the country as a whole. Trump does. Much of the voting public eventually turned on Nixon, and his political allies had to do the same. That will never, ever happen with Trump.

Nixon didn't have Fox News. He didn't have social media. The Washington Post's reporting of Watergate (and the Post wasn't alone--NYT and CBS were heavily involved, too)--eventually became a national obsession. Reporting like that today would/does immediately meet resistance on Fox News and social media from right wingers seeking to discredit it--which they do in the eyes of their audience.

When there's no such thing as truth, anybody can get away with anything.

[pcf]

It is just embarrassing that Trump still has supporters. These people are as pathetic as the women who fell in love with Charles Manson.

[NFFrog]

What I think you fail to understand here is that by serving Trump--or Manson as the case may be--you give your futile, meaningless life a real purpose.

[Friskyfrog]

I want to hear more information on Gen. Miley’s decisions around taking orders from Pence (or not). Did they consider Trump incapacitated? Acting as an enemy?

I also really want to understand why the Capitol wasn’t better prepared. As someone who spends a lot of time on Twitter, I had no doubts that the plan was to go make trouble there. I just thought they would be met by stairs full of dudes in riot gear with long guns like we’ve seen plenty of times before. I was confused and stunned when they breached easily and then later when they were all able to leave without arrest.

[NFFrog]

There's enough out there already which shows this degree of preparation was quite intentional. See Flynn's bro, for example.

[Duquesne Frog]

The thing I keep coming back to, and I know it is the obvious "woke" angle ... but if that had been a BLM protest on the day of an election certification, the Capitol would have looked like the Kabul Green Zone ...

[Friskyfrog]