Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

A consequence of cucumbers

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

Motown is Joe-Town!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Let’s finish the job.

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are here: Home / Jan 6: Insurrection / Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Anniversary

Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Anniversary

by | 142 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Saturday Morning Open Thread 26

(Clay Bennett via GoGocomics.com)


Saturday Morning Open Thread 27

(Ann Telnaes via the Washington Post)

Reader Interactions

142Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    I remember exactly where I was when the insurrection started — commenting on this blog! My incredibly astute comment was, “Wow, this is some crazy shit!” I was not wrong!

  5. 5.

    Mousebumples

    @Betty Cracker: I remember taking my lunch break at work and seeing posts and tweets about it and wondering if it was a few crazies or more widespread since it was difficult for me, initially, to get a feel for that from reporting.

    The rest of my productivity that day went down the tubes as I couldn’t stop watching the assault on our democracy.

  7. 7.

    bbleh

    Seems to me the MAGA narrative has changed from “wait, wut? it was just harmless tourists!” to more like “wull it was mostly nonviolent” (plus some of the usual “we’re fightin’ fer our freedoms!”).  More like “not really guilty enough” vs “totally innocent!” So there has been some evolution.

    Dems are right to keep banging this drum.  There’s no downside, and violent riots just aren’t very popular no matter what cause is claimed.  Keep it up for another 10 months and I would expect things to change considerably further.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @bbleh:

    I don’t think the right has a single narrative on a lot of things. They often make mutually inconsistent arguments with no shame.

  10. 10.

    bbleh

    @Baud: true, and even consistent voices on the right say different things, but it’s my sense of, if you will, the “center of mass” of all the babble.  There’s an element of defensiveness now that I didn’t notice before.

  11. 11.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good mornin’, y’all!

    Although the day isn’t over, I have yet to see a single peep out of any of my congressional delegation (all Republicans) about today.

    And none of them had anything to say about POTUS’s speech.

    Cowards, one and all.

  12. 12.

    Dagaetch

    I was driving home from a long COVID era holiday visit with family. I think I had just passed NYC when my phone started buzzing with alerts, so I switched from music to NPR. Then pulled off the road to listen. Eventually I started driving again, and after a couple minutes had to switch back to music because I needed to pay attention to the road. Eventually got home and caught up. It was an absolutely terrible day for this country.

  13. 13.

    p.a.

    I watched on CNN, or bounced around to whatev.

    Was watching tv on 9/11 from after the first WTC crash.

    Watched the Challenger launch live.  The Space Shuttle was still a big deal at the time.

    😕

  17. 17.

    Nukular Biskits

    One thing, among many, that pisses me off about this is that the local, supposedly “librul” media (meaning the corporate-owned media) here on the MS Gulf Coast is barely mentioning this.

    You’d think, if they were truly committed to journalism, they’d be at least getting statements from elected Republicans about their commitment to Donald Trump, their thoughts on the anniversary and President Biden’s speech.

    Nope.  Instead, I get stories about a lottery winner in CA, or a house fire in NJ.

  18. 18.

    RevRick

    @bbleh: The GOP has not just changed the narrative of January 6th, but have spun a dizzying array of narratives, often contradictory, often in quick succession, about what happened. It was peaceful tourists. No, it was Antifa. No, they were patriots. No, the FBI instigated it. No, they were fighting for their country.
    What I find most telling is that most of these narratives admit that the mob of his supporters have zero agency. They’re so gullible, likely blinded by their own garbage beliefs, that random strangers can rile them up and get them to commit crimes.

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    The one thing that I will never forget.

     

    They were just allowed to leave.

    No paddy wagons / buses waiting to arrest them…

    They were allowed to just leave.

    Most glaring example of White privilege ever.😠

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The world turned white last night. The birds are grateful for all the sunflower seeds and suet.

  21. 21.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I remember the day vividly as I was watching from nearby Takoma Park and wondering if I’d have to slap on my bike helmet and grab my axe and go down there to fight for American democracy.

    I ALSO vividly remember that Muriel Bowser was the only leader willing to send reinforcements to the Capital Police – DC Metro – because the President had command of the DC National Guard. Fucking Larry Hogan may be a reasonable Republican but he chickened out like they all do when the rubber hits the road.

    The military in general were too worried about IDK what – any excuse they could invent for themselves – to honor their oath to the Constitution that day. Pathetic.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @RevRick: There is a void at the center of his soul.

    Yep, one his sycophants can never fill no matter how loudly they sing his “praises.”

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @RevRick: Yes, a howling void that compels him to puff himself up and endlessly seek adulation because he knows in his shriveled heart that he’s as worthless as his vile father said he was. Trump is a deeply damaged human being who would be a suitable object of pity if he weren’t trying to resolve his daddy issues by leading a fascist cult in an assault on democracy. But here we are.

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    @RevRick:

    but have spun a dizzying array of narratives, often contradictory, often in quick succession, about what happened. It was peaceful tourists. No, it was Antifa. No, they were patriots. No, the FBI instigated it. No, they were fighting for their country.

    After the Iraq invasion, or maybe during the lead-up to it, I think I tallied something like 27* separate justifications for the invasion. And it was not a case of Justifications B, C, and D were “in addition to Justification A”; it was “well, A didn’t work/convince, let’s try B” until they finally just said “screw it, let’s invade.”

    * The “27” might be an exaggeration, but not much of one.

  30. 30.

    TBone

    On January 7 I watched my evangeluglican, politically- active Maga cult neighbors’ teen son (who has a literal shrine to Rump in his bedroom) skulk around his garage in wild eyed fear and I actually saw shame and regret in action.  He removed all the bumper stickers and huge flags from his magamobile. I threw my window wide and shouted a greeting like Scrooge on Christmas morning.  They know.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    Futzed that up, didn’t I? Le sigh. Fix.

    And now for something completely different. From the What Were They Smoking? file:

    Get ready world, it’s Superpup!
    :)

  34. 34.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly: It snowed here too and it’s very pretty and I am very glad it chose Saturday and I do not have to drive in it.

    When I was a kid, my mother worked part time in our small town grocery store, as a meat cutter, back when little small town stores did that for you.  She would bring home big hunks of suet for the birds.

  35. 35.

    TBone

    @SFAW: it was fucking GLORIOUS.  I spent Jan. 6 consoling a girlfriend who was reduced to tears.  I do not forgive and I do not forget.  Kick them when they’re down so they won’t forget either.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nukular Biskits: ​ When our feeders run out the hummers come to the window over my desk and say, “HEY! YA LAZY BUM! GET WITH THE PROGRAM AND GET OUT HERE AND REFILL THE FEEDERS!”

    I’m not kidding! God’s honest truth!

    Well, OK, I did make up the dialogue. But they are angry AND insistent at the window

  38. 38.

    Betty

    I watched it pretty much from the start on MSNBC and kept shouting at the tv, “Where is the National Guard?”  I couldn’t believe this was happening, and that no one seemed able or willing to stop it.

  39. 39.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Spanky: I was inclined to use my vehicle as a weapon for as far as it would take me. Then grab the axe.

  40. 40.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: Even without the speech, that shows a frightening level of intelligence for creatures with a brain weight best measured in milligrams. Maybe some sort of hive mind…

    EDIT: To be clear, this is the hummingbird sub-thread, not the MAGA insurrectionist sub-thread.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: I was WFH-ing, because plague, and I started seeing alerts pop up on my home page, and I finally wrote on our company group chat…. “Is anyone else completely riveted by the news right now?!”. And, like, half of our office wrote back, “I CAN’T LOOK AWAY!!!” or something similar.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    a frightening level of intelligence for creatures with a brain weight best measured in milligrams. Maybe some sort of hive mind

    You’re intentionally trying to get me to nominate this, but I know it’s too long for the rotating tag.

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    So, as I noted three years ago….. my birthday is January 7. Due to the insurrection, the actual vote to certify the election happened in the wee morning hours of my birthday. So, for my birthday, I got a new president. Which was the best gift I could have received.

    Tomorrow is my birthday, and I am asking for a belated gift of the re-election of Biden-Harris. (And an espresso maker.)

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    That was a tense afternoon and evening. I relaxed some that night when I saw that Congress was back in session and confirming the Electoral vote totals. I think they finished after midnight.

  47. 47.

    Starfish

    I was working from home and very concerned about how I would explain the attempted overthrow of the US government to a child. They don’t make a parenting book for that one. I did not tell him for a number of days and we avoided watching any of the videos because it was scary.

  48. 48.

    kalakal

    @rikyrah: Couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t believe they weren’t kettled* and processed, just allowed to walk away. They assaulted the heart of US govt and were allowed to stroll off !!!???? Compare and contrast to BLM rallies

    **In the UK when you get a major riot the area is sealed, no one gets out until they’ve been asked a few hard questions, they may or may not be detained at that point, but they are id’d and on record.

  49. 49.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Starfish:

    @Nukular Biskits: I am sorry that local journalism where you are has been gutted completely.

    There are a couple of statewide outlets that do pretty good work:  MS Free Press and MS Today.

    But the corporate-owned media outlets (The Sun Herald is a McClatchy paper & WLOX is owned by Gray Television) don’t seem to be interested in providing any timely analysis or journalism.

  50. 50.

    bbleh

    @Baud: @Mousebumples: @RevRick: @OzarkHillbilly: @Betty Cracker:  it’s the root of narcissism: a constant, insatiable lack of self-confidence.  All the rest of it — the grandiosity, the craving for attention and praise, the (in his case) sociopathic indifference to anything and anyone else — are consequences of his howling need.

    For all his smirking and bombast and overcompensation, I think down deep he’s desperately unhappy.

  51. 51.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I hope the videos of the insurrection are played endlessly today. I was sure I’d never forget how shocking it was, but when the Jan 6 Committee played them, I was shocked all over again.

    And, yeah, I too was on this blog commenting at the time. It took a while to realize how much insanity was happening.

  52. 52.

    Mousebumples

    @Suzanne: Happy birthday!

    I’m optimistic about the Biden-Harris chances for reelection, but I’m still planning to put on the work.

    Which reminds me that I should email WaterGirl to see when we want to start up postcarding events – but probably not until fall unless there are local/state elections of import between now and then? (no Wisconsin Supreme Court race this year, but we’ll have one again next year…)

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: that shows a frightening level of intelligence for creatures with a brain weight best measured in milligrams.

    Yep. The first time they did it I was like, “WTF?” but after the 7th or 8th it was obvious they knew exactly what they were doing, that I was the guy to talk to, and where to find me. Now I just say the same thing to them that I say to my wife*: “Yes, dear.”

    *She HATES that, but it was a part of our marriage vows so I am sworn to say it. Than again, she is supposed to say “My hero…” at appropriate moments, like when I take out the trash. But she never does tho. Hmmmm…

  56. 56.

    Mousebumples

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I was sure I’d never forget how shocking it was, but when the Jan 6 Committee played them, I was shocked all over again.

    The Jan 6 Committee also had access to viewpoints and footage that hadn’t previously been publicly available.

    I don’t want to say I Enjoyed the hearings, but they were necessary and informative.

    Thanks to Speaker Pelosi for not allowing insurrectionists to serve on the Committee. Also to then Rep. Cheney and Rep. Kinzinger for putting country above party. I don’t agree with them on much, but I do agree with them on this.

  60. 60.

    New Deal democrat

    In an alternate iteration of the multiverse, in the few days after 1/6 when even GOPers were calling what happened an insurrection, and Manchinema hadn’t ginned up their obstruction machine yet, Congress passes a Resolution declaring the event an insurrection and calling for full legal consequences, which is sent to President Biden on the 20th and he signs it.

    Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is unequivocally engaged (and, having already cashed their checks, the GOP 6 on SCOTUS have no incentive to save Trump).

  62. 62.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Starfish:

    @Nukular Biskits: The Sun Herald and WLOX were the major sources of news when I lived there. What is Grey Television?

    From Wikipedia:

    Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United States in 113 markets. Its station base consists of all ranges of media markets, from as large as Atlanta, to one of the smallest markets, North Platte, Nebraska.

    IMHO, just a slightly less wingnut version of Sinclair Broadcast Group.

  63. 63.

    eclare

    @Nukular Biskits:

    MS Free Press is very good, I follow them on Twitter.  The last big corporate job I had, half of my department commuted to Memphis from MS, so I like to keep up with MS news.

  65. 65.

    Suzanne

    @Mousebumples: Thank you!

    To note: the espresso machine thing is because Mr. Suzanne had bought me one as a gift about seven years ago. And it was destroyed when that methhead broke into my house and smashed up my kitchen. It’s the only thing I still haven’t replaced (though I still have to have the kitchen floor re-tiled.) That break-in was January 8, two years ago. January 8 was also the day of Gabby Giffords’ shooting. So also a terrible anniversary.

    I don’t know if I ever want to canvass in person again. In 2016, Mr. Suzanne and I were chased away from a house on our list by a dude shouting anti-Semitic crazy shit and he threatened to shoot us (someone at that address was a registered Democrat and that causes me no end of concern). But I have been upping my pointed-pen calligraphy game. So maybe postcards it is.

  72. 72.

    Ken

    @Mousebumples: Thanks to Speaker Pelosi for not allowing insurrectionists to serve on the Committee.

    I think some credit should go to Kevin McCarthy, who handled the appointment of the Republican members with the same adroitness we later saw during his term as Speaker.

  73. 73.

    Mousebumples

    @Suzanne: I don’t know if I ever want to canvass in person again. In 2016, Mr. Suzanne and I were chased away from a house on our list by a dude shouting anti-Semitic crazy shit and he threatened to shoot us (someone at that address was a registered Democrat and that causes me no end of concern). But I have been upping my pointed-pen calligraphy game. So maybe postcards it is.

    I’ve also done texting, but I don’t love phone calls – and the hours aren’t great for when I’m kiddo free. But postcards are effective and easy to do when I have time. 😊

    Postcards to Voters has addresses for Tom Suozzi in NY (Santos’s replacement), if anyone has time for postcarding right now. 😊

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    In international news, Secretary of State Blinken was in Ankara this morning conferring with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. I saw that Blinken was to meet with President Erdogan as well..

    The three men had a lot to talk about, and humanitarian relief for Gaza was likely a top item on the agenda. The US and Turkiye are on different pages regarding the war itself, but relief for Gaza and the need to contain this war are common interests.

    Secretary Blinken was to fly on to Cyprus for a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister and then end the day in Jordan, a key player in the larger Israel/Palestinian question. Meetings in Israel, the West Bank and Egypt are scheduled tomorrow, I believe.

  75. 75.

    Mousebumples

    @Ken: I think some credit should go to Kevin McCarthy, who handled the appointment of the Republican members with the same adroitness we later saw during his term as Speaker.

    I don’t want to give him any credit. 😒 And even a broken clock is right twice a day.

  81. 81.

    MazeDancer

    On 1/6, took me a bit to believe my eyes. This can’t be happening. What is this?

    Where is the National Guard?

    Twitter was pretty much tweet after tweet of WHERE IS THE NATIONAL GUARD??

    Violence, horrible, terrible violence. Smirking idiots with Confederate flags desecrating hallowed ground..Hang Mike Pence? That’s a gallows!

    Mr.Biden said the insurrectionists have been sentenced to a collective 840 years. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

    Especially the Proud Boys. How you like being “white” now, Enrique?

    I remain as smolderingly angry as Joe Biden. in November, between Trump and abortion rights, I believe there will be a rising up and the GOP, like the Confederacy, will lose.

  83. 83.

    bbleh

    @eclare: yeah that’s the one that shows his Klingon heritage most clearly.

    And btw in that job, he faced down FAR worse than the Orange Fart Cloud.

    Don’t cross the guy is all I’m sayin’…

  85. 85.

    RandomMonster

    I work from home and I can have news feeds on in the background if something interesting is going on. I started watching early on that day, because I knew Trump was threatening, “It will be wild”, and I figured no good can come from that. His speech that day did not reassure me.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    I think we have to get across to women that they can ban abortion nationally without Congress – they just need a Republican attorney general:

    Mary Ziegler, abortion law expert:

    So, you began to see anti-abortion lawyers [bringing Comstack back]. I think the architects of this strategy were familiar figures: Jonathan Mitchell and Mark Lee Dickson, who were the team behind Texas’ S.B. 8, the bounty law. They began suggesting that the anti-abortion movement didn’t need a new law, because they already had the Comstock Act. The Comstock Act, it turned out, they argued, actually banned all abortions, because, they suggested, that every single abortion in the United States, surgical or medical, requires something that comes in the mail: Abortion providers don’t create their own medical devices or surgical instruments. They don’t make their own drugs. They get them from medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical distributors. So they began seeding local ordinances with mentions of the Comstock Act. They began promoting this argument to state legislators and conservative attorneys general.
    And now you’ve seen it spread—in other conservative organizations, Christian right organizations, single-issue anti-abortion organizations. So really kind of regardless of what happens with the mifepristone suit, we’re going to see more lawsuits about this, some of which have already been filed, others of which are going to be filed soon.

  87. 87.

    TS

    @rikyrah:

    They were just allowed to leave.

    And that really was the most incredible part – they stormed the capitol building, caused the congress members to flee/hide & then went home to carry on their lives. Just unbelievable.

  88. 88.

    MomSense

    @Mousebumples:

    I was also at work and not really paying attention until I started getting texts from family about it.

    I can’t believe how many people who weren’t sympathetic to the insurrection seem to want to move past it and forget it.

  89. 89.

    Ken

    @New Deal democrat: In an alternate iteration of the multiverse, in the few days after 1/6 when even GOPers were calling what happened an insurrection

    Did we have a few days? I remember Lindsay Graham (for one) said something like that, but after he went home, changed his pants, and read the polls of the Republican base, he switched pretty fast.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    I was working in DC at the time, and had plans to go back into work in the evening.

    Plans changed…

    Imagine the coverage of the converse / inverse / contrapositive (too little caffeine to pick the right word yet):

    Black Brandon sends Tweets out – “Be there on January 6, will be wild!”

    neo-ANTIFA, neo-ACORN, and neo-NFAC holds rally, Black Brandon gives speech, etc., etc.

    neo-ANTIFA, neo-ACORN, and neo-NFAC march to Capitol, break in, etc., etc.

    Just imagine the coverage by the press and the actions of law enforcement.

    As A.R. Moxon says, to imagine it and ask the question is to get the answer.

    Grr…

    As in 2020, the election this year will be a turnout election. We have to do everything we can to turn our voters out.

    (I assume others noticed the way Biden clenched his fists when he was holding back saying too much in anger. I hadn’t noticed that tell before.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  95. 95.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    I still want to know why the Capitol Police were not fully staffed that day.  Normally they would be fully staffed for that proceeding even without the constant threats leading up to it.

    So many things about that day indicate to me that it was a coordinated attack with a planned lack of preparation and response by trump administration officials.

    I also haven’t forgotten that the Biden transition team went public about the DoD deciding to stop their work with the Biden team.  The DoD said it was a planned break for the holidays and the Biden team said that was absolutely false.

    Then there was the story about Biden’s Secret Service detail coming out of retirement because of concerns about current Secret Service officers.

    I was so upset about those two blurbs I heard on NPR (hello Debbie wherever you are I hope you are ok and miss you) that I called my son on my drive home.

    I still haven’t heard answers to those things and it worries me.

  96. 96.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @rikyrah: My wife and I were home sick that day and watched it unfold on the various news feeds. Among the many things we yelled at the TV about was the lack of any arrests. Of course, part of that was the lack of an effective police presence. But a lot of it sure looked like white privilege on live TV.

    In hindsight, given that we now know that part of Trump’s plan was to call out the military if there was significant violence, it may well be the lack of arrests kept the violence low and prevented a true coup. However, equally, if a few of the insurrectionists had been aggressively arrested at the outset, maybe the rest would’ve found something better to do.

  97. 97.

    Ken B

    @eclare: Two things about Jack Smith; when he was named I looked him up and thought, “You don’t hire that man not to prosecute. Trump has no idea of how bad his life is going to get.”

     

    If  Nemesis was a god rather than a goddess, then he would look exactly like Jack Smith.

  98. 98.

    RandomMonster

    @Ken: Did we have a few days? I remember Lindsay Graham (for one) said something like that, but after he went home, changed his pants, and read the polls of the Republican base, he switched pretty fast.

    I think he was summoned to Merde-a-Lardo and Trump let him know what kompromat they had on him.

  99. 99.

    eclare

    @Kay:

    I just looked it up on the internet, so take it for what it’s worth, but I found that the Comstock Act refers specifically to US Mail.  So I wonder if FedEx or UPS could be used to mail supplies.  And yes, I am sure some RWNJ AG would bring a case that those are the modern day equivalents, but I still wonder.

  100. 100.

    bjacques

    I remember staying up late and at some point late at night (my time) or the next morning, seeing brief footage of Trump in a corridor somewhere gaping at a TV screen on the wall, as if in wonderment at all that chaos unfolding at his behest. And I never saw that footage again.

  104. 104.

    Michael Bersin

    @Nukular Biskits:

    The betting line in Missouri on Josh Hawley (r) opening his mouth is kind of tough to figure.

    “The most dangerous place to stand in Washington D.C. is any place between Senator Josh Hawley and a live microphone” – Charles P. Pierce

  105. 105.

    prostratedragon

    @TS:  Wouldn’t that have been a side effect of not having the National Guard? Personnel shortage. Of course, serious preparation might have required having them on hand from the start to keep the police from being completely backed up against and into the building by the mob.

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @Betty: As Mayor Bowser pointed out in the run-up, lots of people were worried that TIFG was going to use the riot and violence as an excuse to impose the Insurrection Act.  They were worried that he was going to call out the Army to DC, and worried that he was going to nationalize the National Guard.  They didn’t want him to have control over those people, so they were figuring out what to do.

    There were many, many competing worries. Some good people in the chain were slow-walking any response, not wanting to make things worse in the fog of information, waiting for clarity and instructions they could trust.  Some bad people were slow-walking any response, hoping that TIFG’s monsters would win before any of the cavalry arrived.

    I can’t really fault anyone in authority who was trying to do the right thing once the monsters broke through the lines.  They knew the dangers and didn’t want to make things worse, and by the time the afternoon of the 6th arrived, it was too late to plan for any law enforcement contingencies.

    I too hope that a full accounting of everything that happened comes out, and that they get the guy who planted the pipe bombs, and all the rest.  (Of course, there’s the 845 page J6 Committee Final Report, but IIRC, they pulled their punches on some of the assignment of blame.)

    From the Executive Summary:

    16. Hundreds of Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers performed their duties bravely on January 6th, and America owes those individuals immense gratitude for their courage in the defense of Congress and our Constitution. Without their bravery, January 6th would have been far worse. Although certain members of the Capitol Police leadership regarded their approach to January 6th as “all hands on deck,” the Capitol Police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd.21 Capitol Police leadership did not anticipate the scale of the violence that would ensue after President Trump instructed tens of thousands of his supporters in the Ellipse crowd to march to the Capitol, and then tweeted at 2:24 p.m. Although Chief Steven Sund raised the idea of National Guard support, the Capitol Police Board did not request Guard assistance prior to January 6th. The Metropolitan Police took an even more proactive approach to January 6th, and deployed roughly 800 officers, including responding to the emergency calls for help at the Capitol. Rioters still managed to break their line in certain locations, when the crowd surged forward in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2:24p.m. tweet. The Department of Justice readied a group of Federal agents at Quantico and in the District of Columbia, anticipating that January 6th could become violent, and then deployed those agents once it became clear that police at the Capitol were overwhelmed. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security were also deployed to assist.

    IIRC, Mayor Bowser made a big deal of saying just before January 6 that DC police were only going to be at intersections for traffic control and the like, and weren’t going to be involved at the rally (because in the earlier summer there were reports of DC police roughing up (and worse) people at Black Lives Matter rallies, etc.).

    It could easily take 50 minutes (or much more) to drive from Quantico to the Capitol. Having assets that far away didn’t help much at the time.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Another Scott: Agreed. J6 was unprecedented, nothing like it had happened before. There were rumblings beforehand and maybe some people should have taken those rumblings more seriously but hindsight is 20/20. I think they did the best they could with what they had available.

  109. 109.

    MomSense

    @Another Scott:

    I watched a segment with a retired Capitol Police officer either on 1/6 or soon after saying that normally they have a full contingent of capitol police staffing the certification, joint sessions, etc.  He could not explain why they didn’t staff as per usual on that day.  Add to that the more than chatter leading up to the certification and I don’t believe it was just that capitol police didn’t anticipate the scale of violence.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    I worked for the postal service as a manager – Fed Ex and UPS are “common carriers” (a legal definition) and treated as if they are USPS as far as law enforcement, so any Comstock Act enforcement would apply.

  113. 113.

    catclub

    @bbleh: Seems to me the MAGA narrative has changed from “wait, wut? it was just harmless tourists!” to more like “wull it was mostly nonviolent”

     

    There were also phases of ‘It was all Antifa dressed up as real Americans like us.’  and

    “It was all FBI  crisis actors.”

  114. 114.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MomSense: ​
     

    I still want to know why the Capitol Police were not fully staffed that day. Normally they would be fully staffed for that proceeding even without the constant threats leading up to it.

    So many things about that day indicate to me that it was a coordinated attack with a planned lack of preparation and response by trump administration officials.

    Me too. I remember that morning, sitting on the sofa where I am right now, taking in the good news from Georgia that Warnock and Ossoff had apparently won their runoffs, and my wife mentioning the GOP plans to disrupt things at the Capitol. And I said, don’t worry, there’ll be a couple thousand police waiting for them.

    (And instead, there were only a few hundred. Still can’t believe that. Like you say, this was clearly a deliberate failure to prepare. And I still want to know exactly who gave what orders to ensure that the Capitol had so few defenders.)

    So I logged in to work as usual, and forgot all about it for hours. First I was aware of how things were going, the insurrectionists were already inside the Capitol in force. I remember it took me awhile to get my head around what was really happening.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    Democrats probably COULD do some legal protections thru a back door if they had Congress. I have a client who wants to open a dispensary under Ohio’s new weed scheme so I’ve been diving into that mess ‘o laws. Congress inserted a “hemp” provision in the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized hemp mail order sales, with restrictions as to potency (dry weight concentration of THC). I wonder if they could do something similiar as a stop gap wrt to abortion. Not the farm bill, obviously, but attached to something.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @Eunicecycle:

    Something something righting the wrong of malicious prosecution of real American Patriots who love their TIFG Country argle bargle.

    Cults can always construct a reason for what they want to do. Logic has nothing to do with their approach, of course.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I think we were really complacent as to womens rights. All of us. I can say I was always alarmed – I read the state statutes they were proposing prior to Dobbs and predicted (here on BJ) that these laws would interfere with pregnant and miscarrying women receiving medical care- but even I didn’t anticipate or predict we’d be lurching immediately backward 100 years into Constock Act territory.

    It was obvious the laws would run into “life and health of the mother problems”. Conservatives make a huge category error with “abortion” – it can’t be siloed in this way – their legal framework doesn’t match the real medical world. It was apparent even before Dobbs- all one had to do was read the proposed state statutes.

    So we have to play catch up. Conservatives actually have more catching up to do than we do because as I said they have a logical problem with their abortion ban legal theory. Their entire theory of banning and enforcement necessarily encompasses medical care for pregnant women – they’re going to kill women with these laws. It’s a fatal flaw in thinking.

  119. 119.

    lowtechcyclist

    Trump lost:

    —The popular vote by 7 million
    —60 court cases
    —In GOP-controlled states
    —Before judges he appointed
    —At the Supreme Court
    —Recount after recount, in state after state

    If the vote in Florida in 2000 had been verified with the same intensity and thoroughness that happened in multiple states in 2020, we might’ve had President Gore. But we’ll never know.

    Excuse me, I’ve got to go track down Scalia’s grave so I can take a piss on it.

  120. 120.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: This is a lesson in the fact that you should repeal old laws rather than assume they’ll never be enforced again.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The authors of Roe (and the theory of Roe, the thinking that got them there ) recognized this problem- they recognized that unless they put a fence around medical care where the state could not go courts and lawmakers would be making medical decisions. So here we are. With absolutely unworkable bans because of logical errors conservatives made when developing the laws. As we know they never fucking admit an error- they’d rather 10,000 women bleed out in the parking lot of the hospital then admit their whole theory is wrong. Americans Fanciest and Most Expensively Educated Lawyers don’t make errors.

  122. 122.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: Yes, I was shocked by that too, I expected that like at all other violent riots they would all be arrested. It’s the starkest example of white privilege I’ve ever seen.

  123. 123.

    eclare

    @Kay:

    I worked at FedEx in the tax dept for eleven years, for tax purposes, FedEx Express, not FedEx Ground, is an airline.  I don’t know how that fits in with the common carrier definition, but everyone in tax was adamant:  Express is an airline.  There was even one state where we used a federal pre-emption to govern how we filed, not the state law.

  124. 124.

    Denali5

    Watching the events unfold on January 6, it did seem to me that a coup attempt was in progress. I had no idea of the involvement and planning of so many Republican officials. I will be forever grateful to the Investigation Committee of the House for exposing this, with the help of Liz Chaney. It is very alarming that TFG has been allowed to walk free, much less run again for President.

  125. 125.

    Ksmiami

    @MazeDancer: I’m fucking furious at Republicans and my SO whose more traditional/problem solver guy is repulsed by the GOP and everything they stand for. I’m sure we aren’t alone.

  132. 132.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    They’re a motor common carrier until they put it on the aircraft, so unless one set up a system where medical equipment/drugs moved exclusively in state by ground and then to the aircraft – each state would have to have a closed transport system – supplier to motor carrier to aircraft, all w/in one state- it isn’t going to work. That’s the reason they’re common carriers- so they can be governed by a set of federal rules and laws so they can move freely between states without negotiating rules for each state. Enforcement would be federal anyway, so I don’t think Fed Ex air can carry it anymore than Fed Ex air can carry meth – they’d bust them.

  133. 133.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I wish you were in charge of explaining the Repubs’ category error on abortion bans to the masses because you’re right — you saw it coming and are capable of explaining it with uncommon clarity.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think we have an advantage right now because it’s clear on our side – we see this fundamental problem – but I hope we push the advantage and come up with some clever lawyering to STAY ahead because I see conservatives just spinning around uselessly with this fundamental problem for a long time. They’d have to admit 50 years of their legal theory is just wrong and unworkable. Part of the problem is they can’t make the laws apply to the intent of the pregnant person so they had to do this bizarre proxy, where they said the intent of the medical provider is determinative -is he or she treating a miscarriage or knowingly performing an abortion? What?

    They thought it was really clever to take the pregnant person out of the laws completely – she’s not in there, which I’m sure also aligns with their anti women religions- but it’s a huge problem legally. We don’t have a legal scheme for competent adults who have no agency and no accountability. We don’t set up proxies for criminal punishment – “we’ll just evaluate the provider and pretend the pregnant person doesn’t exist!” WTF.

  135. 135.

    RevRick

    @sab: Through most of its existence the Supreme Court’s been a reactionary institution. Think Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Lochner. There was a brief window from FDR’s second term through the early Burger Court. But for the most part, the Court has been awful.

  136. 136.

    Citizen Alan

    @bbleh:

    For all his smirking and bombast and overcompensation, I think down deep he’s desperately unhappy.

    Jesus, I hope so!

  137. 137.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: Hell, the hummies *come out and find us* when we are out logging the back 40 and buzz us, all like, “Dude. DUDE!!” to let us know that the feeders need tending!

  138. 138.

    wjca

    @bbleh: For all his smirking and bombast and overcompensation, I think down deep he’s desperately unhappy.

    Longing for the day when he moves from desperately unhappy to flat out terrified of what is happening.  Although that day may already have come, judging from some of the stuff he’s churning out.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    One of the things I think about (hindsight!) is that the Democratic Party was actually too far Right on abortion. You’ll recall we had to do all that ridiculous horse trading with House Democrats around the ACA because they capitulated to the Catholic Church on whether women were permitted birth control.

    That was Democrats.

    Now that we’ve finally actually heard from the country on abortion we find out huge majorities don’t actually want the Catholic Church directing what women are permitted to do. The Right flank of the Democratic Party were really out of touch with American women also.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I bought it too! I thought we had to capitulate on womens rights to get the health care law. I thought that was perhaps a majority position, 51%, something like that

    Turns out, ALL Right-leaning politicians (and media) were out of touch with Americans, and Americans are much more liberal on womens rights than conventional wisdom dictated and better than 60% of people (not just Democrats) think this is none of the governments business.

  141. 141.

    wjca

    @Kay: Turns out, ALL Right-leaning politicians (and media) were out of touch with Americans, and Americans are much more liberal on womens rights than conventional wisdom dictated

    It occurs to me to wonder if said right-leaning politicians might have been correct . . . about the views of American men.  Wouldn’t be the first time that particular kind of unconscious blindness occurred.  See any mid-20th century (or, for all I know, current) basic anatomy textbook.

  142. 142.

    louc

    I live on Capitol Hill and due to COVID, was working from home. I could barely focus that day with all the helicopters buzzing overhead and all the sirens and wondering and worrying.

    I walk by the Capitol police station on a regular basis. I also often walk by the DC NG Armory in the opposite direction. We kept saying, “where is the national guard?!”

    I had relatives who were insisting that the “bad actors” were Antifa. Gah.

    Here’s a new video of Jan. 6 of a Republican congressman confronting rioters.

Comments are closed.