Everybody is champing at the bit for the 6th January investigative commission announced last week to get to work. Even Liz Cheney is stating unequivocally that one of the key people they need to subpoena and interview is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Speaking to ABC News’ This Week in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, Cheney said McCarthy “absolutely should” testify before any commission, and that she “wouldn’t be surprised if he were subpoenaed”.
Congressman Thompson who negotiated the agreement for the commission has his sights on even bigger prizes:
Bennie Thompson says Trump should be called to testify before the January 6th Commission pic.twitter.com/53abNkgzTy
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 16, 2021
None of this, not one little bit, is ever going to actually happen. I’m not even sure the commission will happen as that will require both the House and the Senate to move at least a resolution through both chambers to establish it. But even if it does get established, provided it is established on the agreement reached last week between Congressman Thompson, the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and Congressman Katko, the committee’s ranking chair. The devil, as they say, is in the details.
From the fact sheet released by Congressman Thompson (emphasis mine):
Key features of the Commission:
- The Commission will be charged with (1) investigating and reporting upon the facts and causes of the January 6th attack on the Capitol as well as the influencing factors that may have provoked the attack on our democracy; (2) examining and evaluating evidence developed by relevant Federal, State, and local governments, in a manner that is respectful of ongoing investigations, regarding the facts and circumstances of the attack; (3) building upon other investigations regarding the attack and targeted violence and domestic terrorism related to such attack; and (4) reporting to the President and Congress regarding its findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures taken to prevent future acts of targeted violence and domestic terrorism, including against American democratic institutions, improve the security posture of the United States Capitol Complex in a manner that preserves the accessibility of the Capitol Complex for all Americans, and strengthen the security and resilience of nation and American democratic institutions against domestic terrorism.
- Like the 9/11 Commission, the measure establishes a 10-person bipartisan commission with five commissioners, including the Chair, appointed by the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate and five commissioners, including the Vice Chair, appointed by the Minority Leaders of the House and Senate.
- Commissioners must have significant expertise in the areas of law enforcement, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, intelligence, and cybersecurity. Current government officers or employees are prohibited from appointment.
- Like the 9/11 Commission, the Commission will be granted authority to issue subpoenas to secure information to carry out its investigation but only upon agreement between the Chair and the Vice Chair or a vote by a majority of Commission members.
- The Commission will be required to issue a final report with findings regarding the facts and causes of the attack, along with recommendations to prevent future attacks on our democratic institutions, by December 31, 2021.
Currently, Congressman McCarthy is trying to tap dance around the fact that he authorized Congressman Katko to negotiate this agreement and, amazingly enough, Congressman Thompson agreed to McCarthy’s stipulations because the agreement appears to have wrong footed McCarthy with Trump, his caucus, and the base of the Republican Party. It is important to remember that McCarthy is not a particularly smart man. Rather, he’s simply outlasted everyone but Steve Scalise in terms of seniority and if Scalise can shiv McCarthy over this, he will! And it isn’t clear if what was agreed to would even pass just on Democratic only majorities in each chamber without significant revision, but let’s say the agreement holds up. If it does, you’ve got a dysfunctional committee that is structured to do nothing but obstruct itself.
The committee will be bipartisan and will have ten members, five selected by the Democratic leadership of Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer and five selected by Congressman McCarthy and Senator McConnell. And while it will have subpoena power, subpoenas can only be issued if either the Democratic appointed chair and the Republican appointed ranking member/vice chair agree or if a majority of the commissioners vote to issue one. And this is where everything breaks down.
Ordinarily, the Republicans go to play on something like this would be for Senator McConnell to place his trusted agent and catspaw on the commission: Don McGahn. McGahn, even if he wasn’t the ranking member/vice chair, would be there to organize and ensure complete Republican opposition to everything. This is how McGahn was used by McConnell to break the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but because of McGahn being placed by McConnell on Trump’s 2016 campaign as the lead campaign counsel and then as the White House Counsel for the first several years of the Trump administration, he’s not going to be usable for this assignment. Instead, Senator McConnell and Congressman McCarthy will simply pick other Republican legal operatives with the appropriate experience who can be counted on to gum up the works. I expect to see former NJ governor Chris Christie’s name floated for ranking member/vice chair. Same with former Congressman Trey Gowdy’s. It would not surprise me if McCarthy goes back to the same well of ratfuckers that Congressman Nunes has been using for several years – Kash Patel, Michael Ellison, and LTC (ret) Derek Harvey – as potential Republican appointees, especially as most of McConnell’s proteges have now been packed onto the Federal courts.
Regardless, because the agreement establishes an equal number of Democratic and Republican appointees and gives veto power over subpoenas to the Republican ranking member/vice chair, if this commission does actually get created with these parameters, then nothing of any import or value will be done. It will serve as a rhetorical tool for Republicans and conservative movement leaders, who it is important to recognize are still involved in the ongoing insurrection against the Constitution and constitutional order that boiled over into explicit violence on 6 January and may very well do so again, to state that they are taking this seriously because they voted to establish a toothless and ineffective commission to look into it.
Congressman Thompson is a sharp guy. And Speaker Pelosi is almost always five steps ahead of her Republican colleagues. But if there is some grand strategy here, I’m not seeing it. Best case scenario from this agreement is a dysfunctional committee with only six months to do anything and that produces nothing of value when what we need is a real truth and reconciliation commission led by someone of impeccable and unimpeachable character that takes as long as it needs to get to the truth in order to hold people and organizations to account so there can be reconciliation. Worst case scenario is it falls apart because the resolutions that would establish it can’t get through both chambers of Congress and once that happens everyone decides the lift is too heavy and the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Have a happy Monday!
Open thread!
Chief Oshkosh
I hate this shit.
VeniceRiley
Success! Consider my mellow harshed.
Downstream today on Webex vs MS Teams vs Zoom. I see news:
https://www.cnet.com/news/free-personal-version-of-microsoft-teams-takes-on-zoom-with-all-day-video-calls/
Ruviana
Wow Adam! When I read the title I thought this would be by Mistermix or Cole!
TheOtherHank
That Pooh and Piglet image reminded me of favorite one of them:https://i.imgur.com/doMlsgi.jpg
Jerzy Russian
I hope the various court cases between the participants continues. Maybe some of the them will start to turn and implicate some of the higher ups.
Jackmac
Since congress (actually the GQP) won’t do shit, it’s going to be up to the Justice Department to throw the book at the insurrectionists. It’s not enough but half a loaf may be all we get.
opiejeanne
Bah.
I figured it would be toothless and useless when I saw some of the proposed rules you listed above
Agree with Jackmac.
Ruckus
Fuck Mondays – Pooh. A wise and thoughtful being.
As to the committee to accomplish nothing but to create an earth shattering amount of hot air, with the added bonus of helping global warming, pttttttttttttt….
The only possible good thing I see that MIGHT come out of this is that more people MIGHT wake up and smell the bullshit that is the republican party. I’m not holding my breath. I will however hold my nose. Oh wait, I have no sense of smell left so I can ignore the bullshit completely.
catclub
Is ther any reason that other House committees cannot investigate. It seemed that way with Benghazi investigations. The scope and length of those should be the model. Hillary testified for hours and hours at them – so trump should be called.
MattF
Well, my mellow wasn’t harshed because it wasn’t there in the first place. My expectation is that, at best, a commission will keep 1/6 in the news and will force R politicians, who would otherwise be hiding in broom closets, to contradict Trump’s increasingly bonkers claims that he won in a landslide. Trump’s craziness is the key to Ds winning midterm elections, IMO.
Another Scott
My take is – we’ll see what happens. The GQP isn’t going to sign on to something, especially in the name of bipartisanship, that will damage their power. Democrats know this.
But the House can/will still hold hearings even after this commission thing doesn’t go anywhere sensible.
Politics is slow. National politics is slower. The Democrats had to try this approach first.
The GQP cannot make the investigations go away, no matter how they try to drag it out.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
Given today’s GOP
bipartisanship is inevitably metaphoric equivalent of date-rape
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: The only reason that the House can’t or won’t pursue this the way the Republican led House pursued Benghazi is that the Democrats are running the House now and the Republicans were running the House then. And because there was no actual wrongdoing by anyone then, other than, perhaps, the ambassador who ignored his Regional Security Officer (RSO), putting himself and those with him in harms way. But Hilary was probably going to run for president, so the GOP had to do something. And they did.
Ruckus
@VeniceRiley:
See that’s the problem. You have expectations that are unreasonable, given that the only republican policy that exists is to be obnoxious twits, gweebs, turds and idiots, of course there will be nothing constructive or positive. The senior senator from KY’s total existence is to block any positive political progress by either party. For republicans that gives them free reign to continue to steal every dollar that they can from the economy and thereby the people in general, which is his first priority. His second is to help restore as much of the racism that this country has fought most of my life to at least cripple if it is impossible to alleviate. If you are in doubt about the second part in any way, think of the picture of him shaking hands with a KKK lawyer standing in front of a stars and bars flag.
And smiling.
He has done far more than any one person should be able to do in a democracy to fight against the progress of humanity, to disrupt reasonable legislative progress, to regress this country and keep his concept of political destruction, and power by the conservative party.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: You mean the picture in this post?
https://balloon-juice.com/2019/01/15/mitch-mcconnell-american-insurgent/
Old School
Unless he’s changed his opinion, Chris Christie was pro-second impeachment, so he seems an unlikely choice for Vice-Chair.
Does anyone know if the questioning from subpoenas would be public or private?
randy khan
I personally have no expectations for this commission. But I also recognize that there are enough idiots on the Trump side of the universe that it’s possible I will be surprised when it turns out there are hundreds of emails between Stephen Miller and the Proud Boys planning the insurrection, or that texts between Lauren Boebert and some insurrectionists from Colorado establish that she gave them directions to Nancy Pelosi’s office, or that Kevin McCarthy tearfully begged Trump to stop the crazies and Trump told him that they were True Patriots doing what he asked them to do. Or, you know, all of those things and more.
Mike in NC
Millions of people in this country would gladly live in a fascist, apartheid police state as long as whites ruled the roost. That’s what MAGA really stands for.
Ruckus
@catclub:
Having shitforbrains testify before anyone is a waste of time. He is delusional, irrational and mentally incompetent. There is nothing to be gained.
@MattF:
If this can be kept in the news, rather than swept under the proverbial rug, that is a positive. I’d bet we are all tired of his crap and can’t wait to never hear the word trump ever again. But hearing and seeing the evidence of how badly he fucked up 4 yrs of this countries history and life has to be front and center, if we are ever to make any real progress.
@Another Scott:
Yes it is. Our lives seem to go faster today and yet the one thing that’s never sped up to any degree is politics. It’s still the get down in the mud and wrestle game it has always been. It’s like watching the sausage being made, which makes you never want to eat ever again. But we get over that, because we get hungry. We can get through this as well. Will it go as fast or as good as we want? Very, very likely not. Can it still go at it’s speed? Yes, yes it can.
The Moar You Know
I can only conclude the Democratic Party is taking sedition and the failed coup on 1/6/2021 as seriously as the Republican Party, which is to say not at all.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Yes.
Woodrow/asim
Millions of still-living Americans did.
Worse, far too many remember those days, as the best days of America. And they’ve convinced many of their kids and grandkids, of the same.
We have a lot of work to do, to overcome this situation.
Kay
The rioters themselves aren’t even complying with court orders. Why would their leaders expect to be held accountable?
I just hope everyone realizes we are walking straight into another insurrection. Eyes wide open this time. Not if, but when. They think they’re above the law. It’s an open question if they are or not. Could go either way.
rikyrah
Since they won’t agree on anything, does this mean that we can kick it up to Merrick Garland to appoint a Special Prosecutor?
sdhays
Adam – What’s your opinion of the 9/11 Commission? The be all and end all of all commissions ever before and ever since (which seems to be the media consensus) or a waste of time and money? Or something in between?
MattF
@Ruckus: I think Trump’s current craziness needs to be the specific focus. He has jumped into the deep end and will never again come up for air. It’s the reason a slice of Republicans have recently turned ‘independent’ and they all need to be reminded of that in a consistent and impolite fashion.
frosty
Consider my mellow harshed. Your work here, it is done.
I second Pooh.
fancycwabs
The good news is that we don’t need a special commission to prosecute people for trying to overthrow the government.
The bad news is we do need a justice department with the political will to do it.
Another Scott
@Kay: I do wish people would stop saying this.
The POTUS and SecDef Austin aren’t going to sit on their hands for hours when the DC Mayor and half of the Congress are screaming where is the National Guard??!!
That’s just one, very important, difference now.
We’re not doomed.
Cheers,
Scott.
artem1s
over and over again Pelosi has earned due respect for her leadership skills. let’s once give her the benefit of the doubt she is owed. Any investigation by the House has to be a bi-partisan. Pelosi is not going to engage in Tom Cotton and Darryl Issa level witch hunts. that doesn’t mean this will be worthless to the courts or investigations taking place outside Congress. the Mueller Report is only now reaping the whirlwind on Barr. Patience please.
Spanky
This is my shocked face.
I just can’t understand why the Democrats are willing to keep getting kicked in the face by these pricks.
Spinoza Is My Co-pilot
@Mike in NC: Absofuckinglutely
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: It won’t be another insurrection. The last one is ongoing. What we have is a cold to luke warm domestic low intensity cold war intended to overthrow the Constitution and constitutional order to permanently establish white, Christian herrenvolk majority rule that includes periodic spikes of terrorism and insurrection with the rest largely being conducted under color of law and under color of the Constitution.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Yes, but…
This would be a Special Counsel like the Mueller investigation, not an Independent Counsel like existed through the Clinton impeachment. So it would be limited by whatever the AG decides the scope, breadth, and depth of the investigation should be. And, of course, it would immediately be attacked as partisan and an attempt to criminalize political differences by the GOP and the conservative movement.
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: It was better than a waste of money, but not by much.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Ruckus:
Your comments remind me that Christopher Browning, writing in the New York Review of Books in 2018, had the perfect description of McConnell:
“the gravedigger of American democracy”
h/t https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy
artem1s
@sdhays:
I personally measure all commissions’ worthiness against the Warren Commission – but then I am an old.
danielx
@Mike in NC:
True dat.
Also: BENGHAZI!
I do detect a distinct difference in Republican attitudes about looking forward and not back these days.
“Let’s look forward and not back. Except for that part – no, not THAT part, THIS part!”
Woodrow/asim
At times like these, I ask myself — what Would John Lewis Do.
What would he be doing/saying, right now? What are still-living people, like Maxine Waters and Jim Clyburn, saying about this, right now?
The fact that they are not raising alarms — when it’s their lives that were At Risk, and their constituents at Highest Risk around voting rights — that makes me think.
I’m reminded of all the crap Obama got over expressing willingness to negotiate over Social Security. I mean, I remember floods of angry comments on him just saying it.
And yet, it never happened. IT’s almost as if he had, in fact, intuited that the GOP was never going to come to the table, and that gave him leave to speak in ways that made him seem “centrist”.
Adam even says above that:
We are not all privy to the exact process. We cannot be; if you and I know the exact why of it, so too would the GOP. I think we can all agree that would be…problematic. Thus, we wait and see.
And: sometimes I feel that commenting on something like this, that is this contentious and unformed, when it’s clearly still needing a lot of cooking isn’t always wise. There may, in fact, be bad outcomes from such a commission, were it to be implemented as-is. Yet if we have to caveat with all the comments around the voting process, maybe it’s a point to nudge your congresscritters if they are receptive, and otherwise see what comes out before sounding alarms?
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah…And? So?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
Yup, it’s the same thing as President Biden hold out his hand for Republicans with other stuff. Make them say no a publicly as possible.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Sorry, wrong.
As others up thread have said, if not in so many words, this is politics. It moves at a different speed and method of movement than real life. Progress is slow and the road is never, ever straight from point A to point F(ixed). To work, the game has to be played, not bypassed. This country is very, very divided and likely will never be 100% reconciled. That is the nature of politics. We don’t have to like it and the vast majority do not, but we risk everything by not understanding it and how humanity actually works. It’s never smooth, progress is never a straight line and you (and everyone else, myself included) will never agree with everything/everyone. That doesn’t mean the end result will be wrong or horrible, it means that it takes time, there is lots of mud to wallow in along the way, but progress can be made. I look back at where we were 75 yrs ago and damn if it isn’t better, even if today is shit. And today is better than it was a year ago. There is the very real possibility that it will be better in a year than it is today. Even if it’s not going exactly in your way and direction.
And no, the democratic party is nothing like the republican party. It never has been and if people continue to make it better, it never will be.
Kay
@Another Scott:
It’s not going to be exactly the same. They’ll refuse to certify well before it gets to Congress.
The Thin Black Duke
@Ruckus: Thank you.
Ruckus
@MattF:
Oh I agree fully. But having him testify is, while possibly not a complete wast of time, pretty much useless. The people who already know he’s insane, if not medically, at least politically, are not going to all of a sudden think he’s not, and the people who want to follow his dumb racist ass will do that without any more of his bullshit. IOW nothing new will be gained, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. He’s proven time and time again he’s not in any way, a normal human being, regardless of his politics. The proof is already public.
WhatsMyNym
deleted
CaseyL
The GQP may be hoping to put Biden in the position of seeing the country become a fascist pseudo-republic or declaring a state of emergency enabling the Federal government to oversee elections. They doubtless see that as a win-win: the former allows them to take control of the country with a minimum of effort and expense, and the latter allows them to declare an actual war.
Frankly, I would be very happy if Biden did declare a state of emergency that allows the Federal government to oversee elections. If an actual shooting civil war results, I’m up for that, too. I hate the GQP like I hate Nazis – because that’s what they are – and welcome a chance to destroy them once and for all.
Another Scott
@Kay: That’s not an insurrection. That’s voter suppression.
If it were so easy to do that (erase the will of the voters), why didn’t they last time? Because the state laws weren’t in place? Yes, they’re trying to change those laws now. But there are still federal laws, the courts, House rules, and so forth. The states with GQP majorities cannot pass any laws they want and do anything they want – there are still constraints.
We do have to fight them every single day, but the monsters had their people inside last time and lost last time. It will not be easier the next time.
We’re not doomed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Ok. So then what do we do to stop them? What can be done to counter this?
lowtechcyclist
My question as well. Why have a (defanged) bipartisan commission when there are committees controlled by Democrats?
Geminid
My mellow is not harshed. It would be nice if the Commission puts everything in a box with a nice authoritative ribbon tied around it. But that will take months, and then will be a two day story for most Americans.
So, we may just have to settle for getting the information from:
1) a multitude of federal criminal investigations.
2) discovery in the civil cases that will be filed against participants in and organizers of the insurrection.
3) investigations and hearings by the several Congressional Commitees with jurisdiction concerning the National Guard, the FBI, the Capitol police, and other aspects of the insurrection (although the Commission might supersede such Congressional hearings, which would be both a shame and a likely reason Republicans went along with the idea).
4) journalists working for print and broadcast media, and for outfits like Pro Publica.
The cumulative impact on the general public of the information from these four categories of sources will likely far outweigh that of the Commission’s Report. I suspect that will be a two or three day story. Although maybe a hundred thousand people will discuss the Report on blogs for years.
natem
Give ’em enough rope
MattF
@Ruckus: FSM knows, we’ve all had enough. But being tired of it is exactly the response that the cultists want. So, e.g., I am definitely not an Axios fan, but if they continue to do stuff like this, I’ll hold my nose and be their pal.
WaterGirl
@fancycwabs: I think we have a Justice Dept with the political will. Time will tell.
The Thin Black Duke
@WaterGirl: 2022 will tell us where we are.
schrodingers_cat
My mellow is not harshed we are not doomed. Doomed are those corpses on the banks of Ganga, not acknowledged even in death.
lowtechcyclist
@Adam L Silverman:
Per Woody Guthrie, “some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.” Change “rob you” to “insurrect” and there you are.
@Adam L Silverman:
The existing prosecutions already are being attacked in that manner. ISTM like the Dems’ best choice is to say, “if they’re gonna say that anyway, might as well go big and bold.”
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: Agree. But I hope the DOJ starts making its mark very soon, because action on that front will help determine whether people see ACTION and RESULTS from Democrats.
That will likely determine the outcome in 2022.
catclub
Depends what their job is.
non- bipartisan benghazi committees did their job – sliming Hillary.
Repatriated
Is there some reason the commission can’t recognize information gathered under subpoena by, say, the Judiciary Committee?
Kay
@Another Scott:
You have to draw a distinction between laws that apply to individual voters and the laws that change how elections are administered- who makes decisions, who certifies, etc.
There’s a consistent plan here. The conservatives on the Supreme Court want elections decided by state legislatures. That is a very different form of suppression and one we haven’t dealt with before and it isn’t just your occasional nutty winger- it’s the US Supreme Court. That’s where they’re going with this.
Listen closely to what the most virulent Republicans are saying about WHY the 2020 election is valid. They’re saying it’s valid not because of voters. They’re saying it’s valid because a majority of Congress voted to certify it. This is a really different legal theory they’re operating under. They’re developing a whole new way for the Right to overturn elections. It’s one step removed from voters. It shunts them aside and says state representatives and members of Congress will be making these calls- not courts and not voters.
A majority of voters in a state won’t matter if the new rules are you also need a majority of state representatives and a majority in Congress to validate the count.
So for a red state like GA you would need 1. majority of voters, then 2. majority of state legislators, then 3. majority of US Congress.
BCHS Class of 1980
The key question to me is whether the hypothetical commission’s discussions about witnesses and subpoenas happen in public and in real time. The utility of ? ? like McGahn is greatest out of public view. I think that this was the best that the Dems could do and better than I thought. The alternative would be for the GOP to have subpoena power as well and that would really cramp Hillary’s schedule.
Ruckus
@artem1s:
This. A bizillion times this.
All of this mess is political. Everything humans do as some size of group is political. And politics takes time and effort and is messy and rarely completely, successfully, one sided. And when politics fails we have war and a lot of people usually die and the outcome is rarely great, even on the winning side. Our world hasn’t shrunk but it has never been as filled with people as it is now, and things that get out of hand, like a pandemic, kill a lot of people. Some, usually conservatives, often think that is an acceptable solution to giving them power. But isn’t it maybe just a bit past time for the human race to grow the fuck up and learn that, just like small children, we don’t always get what we want. But as adults, if we actually think about it, we can get what we need. And yes it’s a cliché song but there is a hell of a lot of truth to it. Right now the conservative party are being spoiled brats, wanting what they want, even if it’s wrong and they can’t have it. We have to once again be the adults in the room and deal with the petulant children. But while they may act like toddlers, they are not and that becomes political. And like it always is, dealing with messy, out of control toddlers is always difficult. And time consuming.
Kay
@Another Scott:
They’re essentially telling their voters that Biden is President not because he carried X + Y + Z states and that equaled 270.
They’re telling them D’s had a majority in Congress and thus certified the vote. The “cure” for that is not then that Republicans should get more votes and carry a state like Michigan. The cure for that is Republicans gain a majority in Congress.
Remember this?
Start thinking along these lines.
gvg
I thought the commission had to be people who weren’t holding office right now? And relevant experience should wash out most of the useless idiots. It remains to be seen who actually gets picked but former republican office holders have been more against Trump than current. I don’t know how this will go, but I think it is a little too soon for me to get all gloomy.
Besides, actual laws were broken. I think some law enforcement isn’t going to overlook it all.
Calouste
@Mike in NC: MAGA = Make America Go Apartheid
James E Powell
I do not understand why Pelosi didn’t just appoint a select committee with a well-known scourge of Republicans as chair and announce that the committee would follow the same rules as Trey Gowdy’s committee investigating Benghazi. Do Democrats think Republicans or independents give a damn whether the investigation is bi-partisan? Republicans are already on record lying about the events of January 6th, why would anyone include them in the investigation?
I guess I’m just too stupid to understand.
lowtechcyclist
@James E Powell:
You and me both. The GQP and its Fox News/Newsmax/OANN/Sinclair media machine will call it a kangaroo court and a lynch mob if it’s of even the slightest harm to their side. So fuck it, let’s go as hard on them as we can within the bounds of provable truth.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Them taking that course of action will only make political violence against them more justifiable in the minds of millions. They should be careful what they wish for
gene108
I have no mellow to harsh.
I fully expect the second, if not more, successful violent coup to overthrow a duly elected government in this country, whether at city, county, or state level by the end of this decade.
gene108
@catclub:
Trump is not a well prepared thoughtful honest person, who executed his duties in good faith.
All calling on him will do is amplify the puke funnel of lies that’s currently only being heard by wedding parties at Mar-a-Lago.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
We have agency and are just as capable of defending ourselves and stopping these people
dave319
@CaseyL: Yup. This.
This commish strikes me as the go-to position of centrist Democrats who are afraid to call out the enemy. We all can see this unfolding crisis; political leadership, if the phrase means anything, requires action– a response equal to the threat; the respectable/cautious/collegial/timid leadership dare not embark on a direct confrontation.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m not in charge of everything and neither are you. We don’t have to brainstorm “solutions”.
IMO you have to get more comfortable in an atmosphere of uncertainty. I can’t tell you it’s all going to work out. Good people will do their inconsistent, bumbling, sometimes tragically insufficient best. We do our best. That’s all you get.
There was never a guarantee. There still isn’t.
debbie
My mellow has been harshed since April 1970. I do wish I had that last graphic as a large wall hanging.
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
Stop pouring sunshine on my doom parade!
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Conservatives are better armed than liberals, and much more eager to engage in violence.
1/6/21 is proof it doesn’t take much to get an upper middle class, middle aged, real estate agent and life coach to join a violent mob or a corporate counsel, or mid-sized company CEO, etc., and these are supposed to be the moderate well educated sophisticated conservatives.
There’s been a fascist undercurrent to what the Koch, Mercer, Scaife, etc. billions are buying, but it used to be reflexively considered wrong by most people. Part of their money has gone into changing how people think about police funding themselves through tickets, and not local taxes, for example, and now the 2020 election is fraudulent.
If it gets far enough they can fail to certify the vote, recovering will be very, very hard.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
It ain’t sunshine. Just an explanation of actual governing by actual human beings.
We as a country have been in better places before. We’ve also been in far worse. We fought a civil war over something so asinine that it never should have gotten close to that far. But this is what real life looks like. There has never really been a proper representative government at any time in history. You think there has? Name it. discuss it, see why it’s not just rare, it’s never been really, really done. The one we supposedly live in was responsible for slavery. Yes we killed a lot of people to stop that but the last 150 yrs has not seen the end to the result of allowing slavery in the first place – racism. Is it better now than half that time ago, 75 yrs? Yes it is better. But that is a relative term, we are still, as a nation of supposedly free people fighting that every day. We are seeing laws passed that directly oppose being a free people, with truly representative voting. We have a political party that abhors freedom and true representation and it’s one of our two major parties. We have to fix this issue if we are ever to move forward to a government and a country that doesn’t value wealth over breathing. Being rich at the cost of so many of the citizens of the country is not democracy, it is not representative and it’s not right. And racism is a part of that, because it gives the poor part of the power party someone to blame for their problems, someone for the wealthy to exploit for more money and cheap labor. Someone to hate.
That creates a country that is not free and a government that is not representative. Racism is our country’s original sin. We didn’t invent racism but we’ve embraced it to enough of a degree that we fought a deadly war over it, that it’s been with us since day one of our founding. I will likely not see the end of it or even much of a lessening in my lifetime but it is the basis of almost all of the problems we face, because:
one, it’s wrong – on every level.
two, it masks the underlying problem of a lack of equal representation.
three, it empowers the wealthy to steal more wealth from the entire country.
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
I was really just kinda poking fun at myself and my consistently gloomy outlook.
Ruckus
@MattF:
I’m not saying we should stop, just the opposite, we have to fight.
We have to do it right though.
trump is a symptom of a far greater illness. And showing his illness to everyone, one more time isn’t going to really change anyone’s mind. Seeing him shout out his racist crap or deranged bullshit one more time likely won’t change anyone’s mind. He’s proven who and what he is long ago. It’s like the lady on her bike that flipped him off as his motorcade drove by. She spoke for all of us about who and what he is. And anyone who is still a fan of his is so fucking deranged that nothing anyone can say will change that. Many people that voted for him have changed their minds and those who haven’t or refuse to are lost. Having him testify will not move that needle one bit.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
I know and understand.
We’ve suffered, as a country, far more than we should have. And moving forward from here will not be easy. We need to discuss it and look at ways to fix what is broken, to move forward, not just piss and moan at each other about how bad it is.
RaflW
Late to this thread, but it’s looking more like the House GOP as a body will not accept even this absurdly spineless commission. So to the OP, maybe Nancy’s grand strategy was to have it not die in committee where it would have barely rippled.
Making the GOP leadership kabosh a plan that had the chin-stroking ‘bipartisan’ polish already applied is at least a minor gain in a already likely no-win situation. (Yeah, I know, the Dems could use their bare majority in the House to move something forward. But our continually failing beltway press would have dismissed any reports as “purely partisan”.)