Honestly, I was pretty slayed by that 10 year old girl yesterday, testifying about having to cover herself in her dead friend's blood to play dead in the Uvalde shooting.  If that can't get some traction.  It's easy to get cynical.  "Red Flags", but no background checks to find them.  OK.

This was kinda teasy.  It was meant as an introduction, but I want to see a lot more of these depositions.  I want to see the full Ivanka/Kushner depositions.  I think they did a decent job of pointing out the stinky conspicuous thing that we've been pretending to dance around, which is that there's no way that Trump thinks he actually won the election, and that all of these moves - fake slates of electors, rejected certifications - are all just desperate pussygrabbing based on the old adage of possession = 9/10s the law bullshit.  Scum of the dice politics.  Fever in the funk house.  Take.

I'm just glad that haunted ventriloquist doll, Adam Schiff, kept quiet.  I can't handle those eyes.
 

We're not the best downstairs neighbors.

crumbsroom wrote:

I haven't been watching the hearings. Mostly because I forgot. But also mostly because I just can't deal with any of this first hand anymore. I neither want to watch the democrats completely flub all of this, or effectively drive their point home and not have it make a lick of a difference anyways.

It was fairly sober, and not really surprising.  The interesting thing will be all of the rationalizations.

"I respect Bill Barr." - Invanka Trump

"She finally screwed him." - Stephen Colbert

As 60 Minutes' Ed Bradley used to say, "don't pop that nut just yet".

Next week will have three more Jan. 6 hearings, on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, although these will move to daytime hours.  They will still be worth watching, and may be even more informative, as Thursday night was more of a preliminary orientation.

Jinnistan wrote:

I think they did a decent job of pointing out the stinky conspicuous thing that we've been pretending to dance around, which is that there's no way that Trump thinks he actually won the election

Monday will be important for this very reason, as the Committee is promising to make this the focal point of the hearing.  Simply put, even among Trump's loudest detractors there's a tendency to presume that he's just crazy or stupid.  That's the typical butt of the joke.  Trump is not crazy, he is craven.  Trump is not so far gone that he actually believes what the lunatics like Mike "how can I sleep at night?" Lindell are telling him about voting machines.  For Trump, "beliefs" are for suckers, they are expedient conveniences for negotiating power.  It's important to understand that this is not a 'he said/she said' difference of opinion or some dispute over perspectives.  It's important to understand that the stolen election disinformation is not delusion, it's fraud.  Cheney said that the core of the deception lies in one fact: "On the morning of January 6th, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain President of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his Constitutional obligation to relinquish power."  On Monday, she promises to double down on this premise by offering further evidence that the stolen election theory was a deliberately wielded weapon and not a product of Trump's confusion or lack of cognitive ability.  Trump cannot plead 'insanity' on this one.  We've already seen a few of the Jan. 6 rioters who are admitting to being duped, and perhaps a few were.  For Trump, and not an insigificant portion of his most loyal followers, who cares?  Whatever it takes.  "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me."

Thursday will be interesting for focusing on the role of Mike Pence.  We learned earlier this week that Pence's chief-of-staff warned his Secret Service detail the day prior about possible physical threats.  Why?  Maybe specifically because, alluded to in Woodward's book Peril last year, Trump had tacitly threatened Pence on Jan. 5, after Pence declined the "wouldn't it be cool though?" offer to subvert the election, warning Pence that those folks protesting outside would not like that one bit, adding, in his poor-man's Edward G. Robinson impression, "You've betrayed us.  I made you. You were nothing. Your career is over if you do this."  Rather than a recourse to any tangible concerns about fraud in the votes, Trump invokes loyalty and manhood ("wimp", "pussy").  Similar to Trump's response to Barr's objections, rather than refute with details, he says "You must hate Trump".  "Trump" is obviously more important than reality, or justice.  Obviously testimony from witnesses regarding these and other conversations would be very helpful to fill in some gaps, and there's one other potentially intriguing implication:

Pence, meanwhile, was inside the Capitol, being urged by the Secret Service to be moved to a safer location. As The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig first reported, Pence refused to go.

“I’m not getting in the car, Tim,” Pence told the agent Tim Giebels — the same agent who had received Short’s warning the day before. “I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car."

That “I trust you” — emphasis on “you” — has sparked questions about what Pence might have thought would happen if he left the Capitol. We know some of those in Trump’s orbit were prepared for a contingency in which Pence was not overseeing the opening of electoral votes; details for one such plan were revealed in a newly released email this week. Was the backup plan to get Pence off-site?

The Post’s Aaron Blake noted that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) had hinted at this in a television appearance in April. Raskin is a member of the House select committee investigating the riot and was pointed in suggesting that Pence’s “not getting in the car” statement was “chilling.”

Pence’s refusal to leave the Capitol can be attributed to not wanting to acquiesce to the whims of the mob. But, as Blake pointed out, the vice president’s national security adviser understood why removing Pence put his ability to defend the electoral vote counting at risk.

“Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do,” Keith Kellogg told a Secret Service agent, according to Rucker and Leonnig. “I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.”

It is not a stretch to think Pence and his team, including Short and Kellogg, had discussed what they might expect in the aftermath of the vice president formally and publicly rejecting Trump’s ploy. That, as they were drafting that letter in the days before Jan. 6, they were making other plans, as well, discussing other bulwarks that needed to be built. Informing the Secret Service. Agreeing to stick with the process no matter what.

Short and Kellogg have both submitted depositions to the Committee and will hopefully clarify these events.

The yet-to-be-scheduled 5th hearing is also of great interest, and will focus on the planned use of "alternate electors", again fueled by the fraudulent claims of election theft, or what Ronna Romney McDaniel calls "legitimate political discourse".  Ironically, the germ of this tactic appears to have been invented by Lawrence Tribe following the 2000 election as a means of having Gore halt that election.  It doesn't appear to have ever been taken seriously by either the courts or the press, much less Gore himself.  But there needs to be some unambiguous legal recourse on this very quickly because if there is any certainty going forward into 2024 is that the MAGA folks will be trying this tactic again, essentially overriding the popular vote in states which have a Republican majority in their state legislatures.  Arizona, Michican, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin all had organized such a slate of these alternate electors (which have no actual legal validity) to send to Washinigton to dispute the actual valid state electors authorized by the verification of state vote tallies.  Some of these fake electors are under investigation (because it's illegal to file fraudulent documents), but others are currently in positions to repeat the ruse, including the current Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano.  This issue has not gotten the sexy headlines, but it will be absolutely crucial in determining the health of our wounded democratic system.

But until then we'll have to settle with CNN's Jake Tapper fearless and scathing indictment of Biden pissing in your baby's formula with monkeypox. 

Last edited by Jinnistan (6/11/2022 12:57 pm)

CRUMBSROOM:I feel I've probably missed out on a lot of pertinent details coming out of these hearings, as I'm just letting whatever filters to me naturally keep me informed. And we all know how dubious a prospect it is to allow media outlets to determine what is pertinent. 

I think that the best aspect of these hearings is to bring focus to a lot of information that was trickled out and scattered about over the past couple of years.  Some sources are pointing out that there wasn't too much new information (using language like "explosive" and "bombshell") from the hearing, but there was a fair amount of contextual insights, which is a kind of information that headlines and tweets are the least capable of conveying.  Some of that is related in the above post, like how clear it is how little sincerity Trump had for finding evidence of actual voter irregularities, rather than in finding ambiguity with which he could manipulate and stall the process.  But there has also been a lot of revelations in many of the books - from Woodward's Peril, Frankly We Did Win This Election, I Alone Can Fix It, and even some of the more opportunistic ones from ex-Trumpies after the fact - that have come out, that get headlines for a few days, and then kind of all melt together over a month or two.  It's important to set all of these things into linear context in a consistent and relatively concise manner. 

CRUMBSROOM:But even feeling like I'm completely misinformed on this, and becoming progressively more ignorant by the day, and hating the feeling I've given into my total apathy, just having to brush shoulders with Kellyanne Conway appearing on Maher (why the fuck do I even still watch this show, do I really need to watch a second rate comedian pout when no one laughs at his hackass jokes?) was more than enough to curdle my blood. Probably not such a hard thing to do, considering all the cholesterol currently gumming up my veins, but still. I wanted to puke on my shoes just listening to that shipwreck of a woman do her 'thing'. 

Haha.  Yeah, I saw that this morning.  I feel the same way about why I still watch the show.  It's a weird compulsion.  Even Cornel West was a goob.  Still mad about Bernie.  And while I think it's noble n'all for West to point out that Coltrane should be for everybody, not just black folks, I still find it rather depressing that we, as a society, still need to be reminded of this kindergarten-level humanism.  And he said it with those big wide eyes, like the very thought was so mind-blowing!  And guess what?!?  Stephen Sondheim?  Not just for Jews!!!  He actually said this like he was dropping Talmudic epiphanies or something.  *pbooosh! gif*  And the most embarrassing thing?  ...I kinda agree with Maher on the whole 'vengence-in-entertainment' thing, but then again I was saying all of that back at RT anyway.

CRUMBSROOM:Really, at times the only salvation I have found in this whole Trump murk that has descended on us for the last six years, is the complete and total awareness of what a horrible despairing lonely and pathetic place it is to be trapped in his head all the time. I suspect he has rarely moments of happiness in this life, that he is constantly dogged by the internal awareness of what a loser he really is, and that it must be completely exhausting to spend every moment of ones waking life pretending to be better than he knows he is. His brain really is the perfect prison for him, even if it doesn't keep him away from society, or keep him from trying to burn the entire world to the ground to satisfy the Giant Nothing that lives in side of him. 

 I think my favorite bit of the night, alluded to above, is the 27-second Ivanka clip.  Why?  Because it's one of those things that you know will rattle in Don's skull for a while.  Arguably even a low-blow but a righteous one.  So of course he has to publicly declare that she was "checked out" or whatever.  There's unconfirmed rumors that he had a bit of a tantrum over that.  It stings, we all know that, but he has to play it like it didn't even hurt.  She's one of the only people though who I suspect he really needs validation from to keep that psychic prison comfortable up there.

 I'll give Liz one thing, she knows a kill shot when she sees it. 
 

Last edited by crumbsroom (6/11/2022 2:25 pm)

crumbsroom wrote:

Oh, definitely. He never makes his points in the best manner, but I've long held the belief that it is total nonsense to act like a pop culture that is not only soaked in violence, but glorifies it as a noble outcome as well as reduces it to the ballet of brain matter leaving the back of heads, has to at least be an ingredient in the growing level of gun violence. Like, how can it not?

I think my general sentiment at RT, around the time of the Aurora shootings especially, but well into Sandy Hook, is that we should probably start taking culture into consideration, not as a form of censorship, but as a more introspective exercise into what our cultural products say and how they reflect our values.  I wanted this to be the crux of the discussion, creating awareness without punitive measures.  Because we have had a pretty steady theme of casual cruelty and sadism in many of our mainstream films, the use of torture as a necessity, the veneration of strength (literally fascism).  From Zack Snyder to Matthew Vaughn to Eli Roth.  That piece of shit Wanted, which is essentially about white entitled carnage dressed in video game graphics and vague notions of 'terrorists'.  My long resentment toward films like Rampage, Uwe Boll's unapologetic glorification of the lone mass shooter, cynically disguised with poorly conceived Occupy rhetoric.  And I called out Tarantino as well, for his fetishized vengence fantasies.  We don't have to ban these films.  We don't necessarily have to not enjoy a couple of them, but I think that we should be able to consider what they are and why they scratch a particular itch.  What do they say about us?  You have people over here writing dissertations on the sociopolitical ramifications of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Fiiine.  But since there's been a fanboy(girl) insistence on elevating pop culture to such a status of psychosocial significance, then you can't just cut off a large swath of our pop culture entertainment as being off-limits to such analysis.  (I'll save my own dissertation on the development of infantilism in pop cultural solipsism for another time.)

But I do appreciate Maher's over all notion: if we assume that films like Sixteen Candles and Revenge of the Nerds should be shunned, or that we need trigger warnings on certain Muppets sketches and Dr. Seuss books, then it really doesn't make a lot of sense to think that those cultural artifacts are of greater detrimental influence than the Taken films or Grand Theft Auto.  And we're not being honest about that.

Unfortunately, we also have to put up with Bill's homophobic take on monkeypox, which was only slightly redeemed by the reaction of the guest whom Maher clearly had no idea was a gay man.

No hearing today because, I think, they may have broke their power-point projector or something.  Oh, Dems.

This is more promising.  The Wall Street Journal is unapologetically conservative, owned by Rupert Murdach, but their readership tends to be a little sharper than, say, your average FOX News viewer.  Over the weekend, rather than join the right-wing boycott of coverage, their editorial board put out a pretty scathing indictment of Trump and his Jan. 6 plan.  This means that, at the very least, the more self-respecting conservative minds care not shying away from the obvious.  They stop short of calling it a "conspiracy" (though this was only after the first hearing), act like it had no chance to succeed (they focus entirely on the riot, not on the ultimate plan to throw the vote back to state legislators where Trump would have certainly prevailed), and they tribally self-applaud those Republicans who stood in the way of the plan, but the conclusion is unmistakable: "Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on Jan. 6, and he is still doing it."  At least they are unambiguous about Trump's culpability, and this is important if, and hopefully when, any charges get brought.



 

Jinnistan wrote:

No hearing today because, I think, they may have broke their power-point projector or something.  Oh, Dems.

This is more promising.  The Wall Street Journal is unapologetically conservative, owned by Rupert Murdach, but their readership tends to be a little sharper than, say, your average FOX News viewer.  Over the weekend, rather than join the right-wing boycott of coverage, their editorial board put out a pretty scathing indictment of Trump and his Jan. 6 plan.  This means that, at the very least, the more self-respecting conservative minds care not shying away from the obvious.  They stop short of calling it a "conspiracy" (though this was only after the first hearing), act like it had no chance to succeed (they focus entirely on the riot, not on the ultimate plan to throw the vote back to state legislators where Trump would have certainly prevailed), and they tribally self-applaud those Republicans who stood in the way of the plan, but the conclusion is unmistakable: "Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on Jan. 6, and he is still doing it."  At least they are unambiguous about Trump's culpability, and this is important if, and hopefully when, any charges get brought.



 

This is something, at least. We can't expect full throated condemnation of the party to be coming from such places, but as long as we can slowly inch towards an agreement that Trump is absolute poison, and that severing all ties with his brand is the only way forward, I can take some small amount of solace.
 

Don't have a lot to say about that last hearing.  I would applaud Eric Herschmann, but I already linked those comments the day prior (always seem to get the jump on these things).  Becoming more and more clear that John Eastman knew that his strategy had no real legal basis, and that the goal was exactly the kind of legal stalemate that would freeze the process.  The bluff was entirely based on his presumption that the courts would be too reluctant to take on such a politically-tinged case.

We'll never know if he'd be right, but I'm more worried at the moment about the reluctance of the DoJ.  There's a lot of witless pundits out there offering their so-called wisdom that it would be too gauche for the Attorney General to prosecute a former president even if they have all of the evidence that he committed a crime.  Oh, the division.  Maybe a civil war!  Who's paying these numbnuts?  Saying that we can't prosecute an attempted civil war because it might inflame another civil war is the definition of fatuous.  Why don't we just allow this spectre of civil war hang over everyone's heads and do all we can to placate the little nazis?  Or we can put it out of its misery.  But we don't want the DoJ to do anything political.  In fact, not prosecuting a president in spite of overwhelming evidence of criminal acts would be the political move, allowing the optics to override blind justice.  An objective case, one way or the other, should be the only path to pursue.

(Some of these pundit wizards are so smart that they're now saying that it was the right call for Ford to pardon Nixon.  I would only agree so far as it virtually guaranteed Ford's loss in the 1976 election, but anyone concerned about things like integrity might disagree.  After all, Nixon would be emboldened enough to declare that "if a president does it, it's not illegal" after the fact.)

And one last thing.  I don't really know or understand what is behind this silly little turf war between the Jan. 6 committee and the DoJ.  I don't understand why the committee is refusing to allow the DoJ access to their "work product" so that Justice can aid in their own criminal investigation.  How would this, in any way, deter or prohibit the committee's own separate investigation?  Why is the committee so adamant about whether they will make criminal referrals?  What's the fucking endgame here?  The only possible thing that I can imagine is that the committe wouldn't want to admit whether or not they may have promised non-referrals as conditions of cooperation with some of their witnesses.  In which case, maybe we should arrest them all for obstruction?  (After their usefulness, I mean.)