It’s amazing people can actually watch this and say it was “fake”, “a tourist visit”, etc. Just sickening how FoxNews and others have warped the minds of millions.

Just saw a couple minutes of the video from that day. How anyone can call it something other than a violent insurrection is beyond me.

Then he is a coward. His legacy could be holding these people accountable and saving democracy in the progress.

When you align yourself with a certain cause or group of people, you will do pretty much anything to justify or excuse away horrible acts because they are now tied to you by proxy. Too many people have too publicly professed their allegiance to Trump and/or the GOP to admit what this really was.

Fox News is the only major network not airing the January 6th Committee live. Tucker Carlson's show aired for the full hour uninterrupted, with no commercial breaks

— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) June 10, 2022

i'd use the word shitstain

No, it's just them laying out crimes with witness testimony and physical evidence. He essentially has determined some people are above the law.

Biden was a nice change, but he's largely failed, and nobody thought it would be anything other than that. As long as he's not 'him'.

Yeah. I am at the point if we would have been better off holding out breath and dealing with 4 more years of Trump then he is gone. The lack of accountability has been mind blowing.

Tucker Carlson went an entire hour without commercial breaks so none of his devotees would get bored during a commercial break and turn on the hearings.

Hannity also. I pinned a tweet above discussing it. They aren't even pretending anymore. It's amazing

Ah yeah, I missed it. The whole thing pisses me off and that's even before I let my mind comprehend that I have multiple family members who live in service to Fox News.

It's always a surreal experience reading the posts from Fox News viewers on their website. It's ironic that these people who have hijacked the Republican party call anyone who doesn't agree with all their extremist views "RINOS". In fact, these lunatics are the actual "RINOS" who have hijacked a once honorable and noble party. Ronald Reagan would be considered a RINO by these people. They call the Jan. 6 insurrectionists "patriots". Patriots? Like the ones who came within 200 feet of trying to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence (who also had his wife and children with him)? To these people, it was all just "harmless fun"

I went a couple of places to see what was being said on the right and it was depressing honestly. Just political theater to distract from gas prices and inflation.

EDIT: and these were the most rational takes

Yes and no. The firmly believe that they are following along in the exact same path Regan would have taken them. The worship the idealistic version of Regan they've created, but if they had to deal with every part of his presidency you would be spot on.

Reagan might have disagreed philosophically with the Democratic party, but he never made it personal and would work when possible to find common ground with them. He had a very friendly relationship with Tip O'Neill, the Democrat Speaker of the House. That would be bizarre in this day and age. Bill Clinton was the last of our presidents who would openly seek compromise with the opposition party, and that will probably remain that way in the future.

For me, maybe the biggest thing that came out last night was that Trump never did order the NG to the Capitol, instead, Pence took over and did it. That, by itself, is enough to impeach the President.

This is largely why Biden has failed. He foolishly thought (thinks) this is still a viable path. He campaigned on bringing the country together in some old-fashioned political sense, but really, the reason he won is because he brought normalcy to the presidency and was not Donald Trump. That's it. The reality is, no one is bringing us together again. It's only going to get worse from here.

He has failed to use power and the bully pulpit aggressively enough to preserve the democracy while most of his supporters scream for change and action to protect the exposed fragile system. Instead he acts like he can appeal to common sense and things will magically snap back. That's why he lacks support.

Right, I think we're saying the same thing. Because to do what you say, he would have to make it partisan/political and he refuses to do that.

The top stories on fox news right now are inflation and immigration. Then further down a story referring to the hearing as a prime time dud.

Nothing more than a propaganda machine.

Yeah. I'm a liberal, but I think that America works best when you have two honorable (I like that word) parties pushing against each other.

There was a lot that the Regan/HW Bush/McCain/Romney/W Bush GOP had to offer us. And that's all gone as the party has gone full authoritarian white nationalism.

edit--wrong thread

Like what? Reagan committed treason. HW Bush covered that up for him. W is a war criminal who used a lot of the same tactics white nationalists used (remember his campaign against McCain?).

I'm a liberal. I have lots of complaints about these folks. But I stand by the fact that they differ in kind from the current Jews-Will-Not-Replace-Us & The-Occasional-Slaughter-of-Schoolchildren-Is-Good-Because-It-Helps-Keep-People-Scared-and-More-Likely-to-Support-Authoritarian-Strongmen incarnations of the GOP.

I watched Fox News for like 5 mins after the hearing, there was one guy who mentioned that Trump gets free rent in the head of democrats and they are solely focused on keeping Trump down rather than lifting Americans up by lowering gas prices and stopping the illegals from voting and getting benefits. There is nothing that can be done to change the mind of 75% of republican voters as they have decided that their side winning at all costs is more important than our republic.

Reagan supported the apartheid state of South Africa so much so that the House (and much of his own party) had to override his veto so they could sanction that regime. He kicked off his campaign with the infamous "states rights" speech in Neshoba County. Started the whole "welfare queen" propaganda. Is on tape using racial epithets.

HW leaned into the Southern Strategy and used race heavily in his campaign (I mean Lee Atwater worked was behind much of the campaign). Remember Willie Horton?

And I'm sure people remember what the Bush campaign did to McCain in South Carolina.

My point is that this stuff has been there for a long time. Trump is not unique and the party hasn't changed much. He just said the quiet part out loud which is actually more honorable than those other cowards.

One of the more interesting things about Trump when one takes a step back is that all of this was predicted.

It would be one thing if, say, Bill Clinton had randomly decided to stage a coup to remain in the presidency. That would have come out of left field.

But there were people from the time Trump became a serious candidate in the primary who were saying that his history of corruption and shamelessness would lead to him ferociously abusing the power of the state.

The establishment GOP could have nipped this in the bud in early 2016. Any warm body would have defeated Hillary Clinton, and we'd be on this board right now arguing about how much blame President Rubio should be getting for gas prices and whether it even matters for a second-term president.

I think they tried. A lot of folks came out against him. There's a demand for authoritarian-style rulers in this country by a segment of the population.

They didn't really try. The pundit class tweeted #NeverTrump once or twice during the primaries and then went along with him. The party leaders could have rigged the primaries and/or changed the rules to keep him from winning. They didn't.

If the party rigged the primary against him or changed the rules, what's the point? A big part - legitimately - of the criticism of Trump is his anti-democratic approach. There was a huge difference in how the party treated him and how it treated all other previous candidaes. He didn't get the endorsements and support. He won anyway.


This is absurd. There's a huge difference between what the party was in the 80s and 90s and what it became under Trump, on many issues and as a general matter of political practice. Granted I wish I had more company, but I'm definitely among those who was driven completely away from the GOP by this shift. The contrast between people like Kasich and Jeb Bush on the one hand, and Donald Trump on the other, was and is a very large one.

Read about one of the peaceful tours you could sign up for

Inside the Oath Keepers' Plan for an Armed Takeover of the US Capitol

I think the distinction I would draw is that the GOP people you list were still somewhat interested in governing and still saw some sort of public service element to it, even if there was still plenty of corruption, grifting, & law-breaking going on. That's simply not true of the GOP now - those people, if they're still in public office (and many are no longer) are definite outliers.

But I think, to RM's point, it's important to note that since WWII all the major constitutional crisis scandals (which, kind of by definition, involve the POTUS) are on the GOP side, whereas the scandals on the Democratic side are mostly personal:

Truman: some corruption & kickback activities
Eisenhower: at most, an unwillingness to take McCarthy on, but I'm not sure that counts as a scandal
JFK: nepotism (RFK), infidelity
LBJ: cronyism
Nixon: precipitated a constitutional crisis after illegal election activities
Ford: none I know of, really
Carter: none I know of, really
Reagan: Iran Contra is just the tip
Bush I: also implicated in Iran Contra
Clinton: fucked everything that moved, some shady land deals
Bush II: Iraq War, extra-judicial activities, pretty much everything Cheney's office did to undermine constitutional checks & balances
Obama: Holder & the IRS did some stupid shit, but nothing that rises even to the stuff Cheney's office did
Trump: LOL

Whether Trump got in again in 2020 or in 2024 I think we are look8ng at the same issue. He has made it clear he wants to get SC / Congress to change the presidency terms from 2 term limit to 3 if not for life. If he wins in 2024 he believe he will stay in until he gets bored. Then he names his successor ( once Hannity and Speaker of the House Marjorie T Greene tell him who to pick). There will be elections just like in Iran, NK and Russia very fair😢

I'm gifting this article to get it out from the paywall. You want a glimpse into the world of Q and trump followers?

https://wapo.st/39hYhUE

Pretty telling statement. Usually being a member of a terrorist group is grounds for being discharged.

What is the huge difference you see?

Worth noting that Jeb moderated his positions a lot over the years. He was incredibly hard right when he started. You should look up his comments about various minorities when he first ran for Governor.

Monday's episode of America's Got Treason is gonna be lit https://t.co/rXStSzqt6b

— Jeff Timmer (@jefftimmer) June 12, 2022

So Stepien was bought by the deep state?

I'm trying to decide which is worse: the pervasive misinformation that allows people to believe these things, or the utter lack of critical thinking skills which makes the pervasive misinformation work.

Or maybe it's the squirting of lighter fluid on an already burning bonfire (not a metaphor).

Curious about what the former Fox news editor is there for and what he is going to say. Not familiar with the name

Isn't that the guy who was involved in the decision to call Arizona for Biden on election night and ended up being fired a couple months later?

Yep found it after I asked. Don't think he's going to say good things about Fox :)

Stepien has apparently backed out of testifying. I wonder what he was promised or threatened with for this last minute change.

Trump following the advice of a drunk off his ass Rudy Giuliani is just…chef kiss

Apparently his wife went into labor.

Not that it will change any minds, and none of this is surprising, but today's hearing was well done. Using so many different people from Trump's campaign is so embarrassing to him. I know he was surrounded by some crazies, but it's nice to see that the people who made up the infrastructure of the campaign were sane.

Of course, Trump won't make the same mistake again...

Love the videos to end these sessions highlighting the propaganda parrots.

At least Fox News was showing the hearings today but it still won't matter.

It's crazy that this whole thing started with drunk Rudy on election night.