For anyone who thought the January 6 Committee hearings might have a “salutory effect” on either Trump or the Trumpublicans, you were sadly mistaken. Since the hearings began two weeks ago, Trump has responded on his Truth Social and at his Hatealong rallies by insisting the election was definitely stolen from him regardless of any evidence to the contrary, that former Vice President Mike Pence really did have the power to overturn the electors and keep Trump in office, and that the January 6th insurrectionists are being unfairly prosecuted.
This is like when you are really, really sick and every fiber of your body is affected....there is no part of you that doesn't hurt!,
The hearing today went down deep into the fiber of our country,--to the fabulous Miss Ruby who lost her only real powers--her name and safety-- taken, targetted, by the very man who had the most power and had once pledged to protect her. And to her only child, heartsick over the thought she had put her Mom and Grandmother in such mortal danger.
And to the families surrounding Mr Bowers and Mr Raffensberger-- the dying daughter, the strong but unnerved wife, the widowed daughter in law with the two babies-- all of them terrorized by the legions let loose by Trump. It is one thing for a person to risk themselves in doing the right thing; it is wholly another to put your family in such grave danger.
If this is part of the ongoing plan of destruction--to so terrorize good people and those they love that they leave public service to find a safer place, thus making room for those with lesser conscience-- then it is succeeding.
Remember when Trump, boasting about his teflon character, said he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave and get away with it? Well, he keeps doing it-- over and over. Today he got Miss Ruby and her only child. Who will it be tomorrow?
Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman should be given protection payed by the US government. Or the legal system should pull out everything they have to run down the cowards that threaten.
Exactly. I wish MoveOn or some other organization would put together a WELL FUNDED lawsuit on behalf of Moss and Freeman and others who were and are being targeted BY NAME, for the daily and repeated slander and libel assault they are enduring.
What the Shithead from Maralago has done to good working people like Shay Moss and Lady Ruby and thousands like them pisses me off. I only wish he will soon suffer all the fear, pain, sadness, injuries and death he has inflicted on others.
There are at least two GoFundMe sites that have been set up for Shaye and Lady Ruby. Let’s hope their recounting of the horrors inflicted on them by the President and their explaining that county police took no action to keep them safe will spur readers and viewers to contribute to one or both of the sites to show how much we honor their service and their bravery, despite threats, to testify today.
There is a focus among all of us that are incensed by the actions of TFG and his hacks that he should be held accountable. And then our natural tendency is to wish them punishment. Normal and justified.
But our laser focused thinking should be in removing TFG from the ability to hold public office again. He needs to be out of the equation. To that end, the DOJ or the state of Georgia needs to charge and convict TFG asap on the easiest possible case to prove - that would disqualify him from office.
At that moment of conviction, the wolves in his own pack will enter the den and eat each other up as their pent up lustful desire for political power is unleashed. The rabid ones like DeSantis will try to out MAGA their former leader and each other. But they won't ever have the sway with the public that TFG did.
And then the Trumpspawn need to be dealt with. I favor the "apocalypse now" formulation, but we're too civilized for that. It may well be that the intelligent one is smart enough to get away from it all and get back to selling handbags and jewelry, and let the other two have "hunting accidents."
Agree, they won't have the sway of tfg, but I suspect they will be seen as the best alternative to whoever runs as a Democrat candidate. Good boys without the taint of tfg and smoother or more evangelical looking. And will use his playbook with less noise.
Doubt this will get noticed much on other Substack, but wanted to post here. Had convo with Ally about a question (perhaps forgotten by many)asked often but not answered to this point. Where in the Sam heck were the troops on Jan 6th? Where was response by National Guard? Why were the m-efers in the Capitol “ALLOWED” to be there so long? To sit at desks, go through papers, wander halls, enter at numerous entry points, traipse through halls defecating and pissing like they had all the time in the world, calling out names of wanted victims, cower legislators for hours, steal from offices,, stroll around with confederate flags. And all the while intense rage and chaos and fighting and killing and injuring going on outside the breached points. When is that question going to be answered? “Where were the troops, the good guys?” How did hours go by without armed response on federal level?
So I answered today with my opinion… and I’ve thought about this a lot, and what it will mean…..
“I answered that question to myself on the day of. When the Commander-in-Chief of this country orders in advance for forces to stand down so the forces he already told to “stand back and stand by”can plunge and plunder, it deepens the unheard of treason by a defeated president still in the WH but unable to participate in a peaceful transition of power. He knew at that presidential debate when he made that openly cloaked command to the Proud Boys. I believe that is the last piece that will be fully exposed by the committee. That is an order that has to come from a commander-in-chief. If there is ever a time that Trump will get on a red eye to Moscow, it will be then. That will be the tipping point of conviction in many minds. Holding back the military force of the US to quell insurrection. I imagine he will not be the only one on the plane.
If Democracy is wrested back from the attempted coup, imagine how many rats will have to flee the sinking ship.”
Yes, the DoD leaders in the Pentagon were stymied by the lack of direction from POTUS. And the DC National Guard had been ordered not to intervene in any civil disturbances militarily, again per direction from the White House, supposedly out of concern for the problems presented during the demonstrations the previous summer.
Eventually, the Vice President ordered the troops to come to the capitol. Despite his actual lack of authority to take such action (which angered POTUS when he did) the DoD took that as the opportunity to do what needed to be done.
When the president is mounting a coup against the government it is difficult to get a rational response when the orders have to come from the guy committing the treason.
I think your idea that the coup was being planned when Trump told the PBs to step back and stand by is accurate. As the Committee has demonstrated, almost everything he did in the campaign makes sense if you factor in that he was planning a coup from early in 2020.
I just feel it is the piece that will trigger that place in many people’s brains connected to fight or flight. As in, where will the troops be when the f-ing Trump trucks and dress up fake ass pussy chamo army guys with automatic weapons show up at my door, my town, my election?
Who is he Commander-in-chief of? What the f*ck did his allies think he meant when he told the Puss Boys to stand back and stand by? Geez for crying out loud. I feel it his most serious mistake. Not that I like seeing that coward Pence get a medal for calling in the troops albeit so late, but so be it. I just look forward to every deliberate word coming out of Cheney’s and Thompson’s mouths when the knife used by Trump to screw the people of this country is twisted in his screeching, whining, smarmy countenance.
As I recall, they were in a forced "stand by" because, as TC notes, they had been told not to intervene. But I think I remember one of their leaders saying he had them fully armed and equipped and ready for action - just needed the go ahead to make it happen. And as for your comment about this coming out in the hearing, I agree. It is interesting to me how well coordinated and scripted and tightly focused these hearings have been. The hint yesterday with Biggs and Johnson's names coming up for the first time, followed by a tip that others in Congress will be named in the days ahead, makes me think these hearings are being put together in an arc like a dramatic movie or book, with the grand finale coming at the end. The louder and more bombastic El Lardo gets (if that were even possible), the more desperate I begin to think he may be. He's balancing on the blade of a knife right now - he continues to grift off the lunatic fringe as long as he begs for money as a has-been, but when he "declares" he loses the use of that money - it has to be directed to a real campaign. He may be banking on the DOJ backing off once he's an "official" candidate, but I think that ship has sailed. There's too much evidence on record and in the public already. I hope we are both correct!
Incredible testimony. Heroic endurance through it all. And the injustice of it - against election workers, officials, and all the rest. The former president sees everything through a "lens of hate" as per Bob Woodward in an interview of how 45 and Nixon are in many ways alike. If hate is at your core, that means anyone in your orbit, whoever it is, will get it. Hitler too saw the world through paranoia and hate. Stalin as well. Putin today is another. It is kind of like the "dark side". It is always present. How you deal with it becomes the measuring stick of your morality and ethics. I think Mr. Bowers certainly proved his capacity to resist the dark side. Not so others - from lawyers, to elected representatives at the federal and state level ready to engage in and promote violence to overturn an American election. The 2022 elections are going to set the stage for 2024. If, God forbid, or God help us, the gop should take over both houses or either house of congress, just imagine what that could mean. We in the US are being called to fight as strongly for the values of democracy as are the Ukrainians doing all they can to stop Putin and his plans for resurrecting the USSR of the bad old days - days he worships. 45 worships himself. So did Stalin. So does Putin. Just a reminder there were "German Christians" - protestants and catholics - who supported Hitler. Then there were pastors and priests who resisted. Many of them ended up in concentration camps and were executed just before the end of the war. But Hitler lost. Stalin, lost, then won for a while. Putin has danced with the west to make money and now he is pulling the edges of his trap together. It will take everyone to resist what 45 and his crowd are doing. And that means NOT voting for gop candidates. Why? Because the majority of them are NOT Rusty Bowers.
Replying to myself here - the thing about Rusty Bowers, however is this: if you know who were to run in 2024, he would vote for him!!!!!! Now I ask you, how in the world does that make any sense at all? It makes no sense. What this approach PROVES is that the lure, the addiction, to a party first (and policies that are at their core deeply detrimental to democracy in the United States let alone the world) and to citizenship and commitment to the project of a humane world that SEES others as part of the community and not as enemies to be overcome, that SEES that the capacity to earn or even make money is SECOND to ethics and morality. Unfortunately the current situation with the gop (not to mention that there are only 2 political party choices and those choices contain many streams fighting against each other most of the time) means voting gop means voting for Fascism/autocracy. There was a time voting dem meant the same. Then that all flipped - thanks to Nixon, primarily and the "southern strategy" which focused on white supremacy and race. Talk about schizoid personality!
According to FiveThirtyEight as of June 22, 2022, Trump has 54.5% unfavorable and 42.5% favorable approval rating. He doesn’t have anything to sell, except for the 2020 election. This is a guessing game, so here’s my hunch, Trump’s approval percentage will go down. Plenty of Republicans, including Mitch would like to see Trump gone. No politician is more disciplined than DeSantis. TC v. DeSantis, now that’s a match.
Now that I got that off my chest, there was something that occurred to me today for the first time, and I wonder if anyone else had considered it. Why did the officials in Georgia and Arizona take Trump’s calls? If Joe Biden called, would they have taken the call? If they took the call and ol’ Joe started quizzing them about the vote count, wouldn’t they have told him they can’t discuss that official business, if not just hang up on him?
I know that a call from “the President” is a big deal, even if it was from a corrupt and grifting moron. We unfortunately have elevated the President, whoever it is, to the status of a civil demi-god, which is not a good thing for any democracy. But still, isn’t it a bit mind boggling that anyone would engage with Trump for over an hour while he’s clearly trying to subvert an election and draw you into a criminal conspiracy? Am I missing something? Am I expecting more fortitude than is reasonable? As it turns out, it was a good thing that these public servants let Trump incriminate himself so thoroughly. But that wasn’t the intent in sitting on the phone with him so long, right?
I’m not sure I have a point to this comment. But the very fact of the phone calls did strike me as strange, on reflection.
In both cases, they had taken calls before that weren't recorded, for which afterwards they might have said to themselves, "Nobody's going to believe that happened without a recording," and they suspected (rightly) that there would be another call - at which point they prepared (and also told their staff, like the investigator who recorded him telling her how famous she'd be for "finding the truth"). I think the two elected officials showed themselves today to be the kind of people who were disgusted by Lardo Lardass' behavior, to the point they'd be willing to document it.
That may be giving them more credit than due, but after listening to them today, I think they are that kind of people.
I wish Schiff had asked them why they had decided to record that call! Then maybe we could have testimony about those other calls and what they were like. It would have been enjoyable (for me) to have the explanation you offer above going into the record!
This is like when you are really, really sick and every fiber of your body is affected....there is no part of you that doesn't hurt!,
The hearing today went down deep into the fiber of our country,--to the fabulous Miss Ruby who lost her only real powers--her name and safety-- taken, targetted, by the very man who had the most power and had once pledged to protect her. And to her only child, heartsick over the thought she had put her Mom and Grandmother in such mortal danger.
And to the families surrounding Mr Bowers and Mr Raffensberger-- the dying daughter, the strong but unnerved wife, the widowed daughter in law with the two babies-- all of them terrorized by the legions let loose by Trump. It is one thing for a person to risk themselves in doing the right thing; it is wholly another to put your family in such grave danger.
If this is part of the ongoing plan of destruction--to so terrorize good people and those they love that they leave public service to find a safer place, thus making room for those with lesser conscience-- then it is succeeding.
Remember when Trump, boasting about his teflon character, said he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave and get away with it? Well, he keeps doing it-- over and over. Today he got Miss Ruby and her only child. Who will it be tomorrow?
Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman should be given protection payed by the US government. Or the legal system should pull out everything they have to run down the cowards that threaten.
Or both.
Exactly. I wish MoveOn or some other organization would put together a WELL FUNDED lawsuit on behalf of Moss and Freeman and others who were and are being targeted BY NAME, for the daily and repeated slander and libel assault they are enduring.
What the Shithead from Maralago has done to good working people like Shay Moss and Lady Ruby and thousands like them pisses me off. I only wish he will soon suffer all the fear, pain, sadness, injuries and death he has inflicted on others.
Hear! Hear!
There are at least two GoFundMe sites that have been set up for Shaye and Lady Ruby. Let’s hope their recounting of the horrors inflicted on them by the President and their explaining that county police took no action to keep them safe will spur readers and viewers to contribute to one or both of the sites to show how much we honor their service and their bravery, despite threats, to testify today.
Waiting for Garland to indict ТЯцм₽ is like waiting in a three-block long line in the rain.
There is a focus among all of us that are incensed by the actions of TFG and his hacks that he should be held accountable. And then our natural tendency is to wish them punishment. Normal and justified.
But our laser focused thinking should be in removing TFG from the ability to hold public office again. He needs to be out of the equation. To that end, the DOJ or the state of Georgia needs to charge and convict TFG asap on the easiest possible case to prove - that would disqualify him from office.
At that moment of conviction, the wolves in his own pack will enter the den and eat each other up as their pent up lustful desire for political power is unleashed. The rabid ones like DeSantis will try to out MAGA their former leader and each other. But they won't ever have the sway with the public that TFG did.
And then the Trumpspawn need to be dealt with. I favor the "apocalypse now" formulation, but we're too civilized for that. It may well be that the intelligent one is smart enough to get away from it all and get back to selling handbags and jewelry, and let the other two have "hunting accidents."
Oh TC. Sizzlin’. I cannot help but imagine it.
Agree, they won't have the sway of tfg, but I suspect they will be seen as the best alternative to whoever runs as a Democrat candidate. Good boys without the taint of tfg and smoother or more evangelical looking. And will use his playbook with less noise.
"The crowd of evangelical mostly white Christians, cheered his cutesy remark about the possibility of running again in 2024."
These people are the biggest threat to the future of the species that currently exists.
Doubt this will get noticed much on other Substack, but wanted to post here. Had convo with Ally about a question (perhaps forgotten by many)asked often but not answered to this point. Where in the Sam heck were the troops on Jan 6th? Where was response by National Guard? Why were the m-efers in the Capitol “ALLOWED” to be there so long? To sit at desks, go through papers, wander halls, enter at numerous entry points, traipse through halls defecating and pissing like they had all the time in the world, calling out names of wanted victims, cower legislators for hours, steal from offices,, stroll around with confederate flags. And all the while intense rage and chaos and fighting and killing and injuring going on outside the breached points. When is that question going to be answered? “Where were the troops, the good guys?” How did hours go by without armed response on federal level?
So I answered today with my opinion… and I’ve thought about this a lot, and what it will mean…..
“I answered that question to myself on the day of. When the Commander-in-Chief of this country orders in advance for forces to stand down so the forces he already told to “stand back and stand by”can plunge and plunder, it deepens the unheard of treason by a defeated president still in the WH but unable to participate in a peaceful transition of power. He knew at that presidential debate when he made that openly cloaked command to the Proud Boys. I believe that is the last piece that will be fully exposed by the committee. That is an order that has to come from a commander-in-chief. If there is ever a time that Trump will get on a red eye to Moscow, it will be then. That will be the tipping point of conviction in many minds. Holding back the military force of the US to quell insurrection. I imagine he will not be the only one on the plane.
If Democracy is wrested back from the attempted coup, imagine how many rats will have to flee the sinking ship.”
Salud, TC and all here.
Yes, the DoD leaders in the Pentagon were stymied by the lack of direction from POTUS. And the DC National Guard had been ordered not to intervene in any civil disturbances militarily, again per direction from the White House, supposedly out of concern for the problems presented during the demonstrations the previous summer.
Eventually, the Vice President ordered the troops to come to the capitol. Despite his actual lack of authority to take such action (which angered POTUS when he did) the DoD took that as the opportunity to do what needed to be done.
When the president is mounting a coup against the government it is difficult to get a rational response when the orders have to come from the guy committing the treason.
I think your idea that the coup was being planned when Trump told the PBs to step back and stand by is accurate. As the Committee has demonstrated, almost everything he did in the campaign makes sense if you factor in that he was planning a coup from early in 2020.
I just feel it is the piece that will trigger that place in many people’s brains connected to fight or flight. As in, where will the troops be when the f-ing Trump trucks and dress up fake ass pussy chamo army guys with automatic weapons show up at my door, my town, my election?
Who is he Commander-in-chief of? What the f*ck did his allies think he meant when he told the Puss Boys to stand back and stand by? Geez for crying out loud. I feel it his most serious mistake. Not that I like seeing that coward Pence get a medal for calling in the troops albeit so late, but so be it. I just look forward to every deliberate word coming out of Cheney’s and Thompson’s mouths when the knife used by Trump to screw the people of this country is twisted in his screeching, whining, smarmy countenance.
Salud, TC. Sizzlin’ today.
As I recall, they were in a forced "stand by" because, as TC notes, they had been told not to intervene. But I think I remember one of their leaders saying he had them fully armed and equipped and ready for action - just needed the go ahead to make it happen. And as for your comment about this coming out in the hearing, I agree. It is interesting to me how well coordinated and scripted and tightly focused these hearings have been. The hint yesterday with Biggs and Johnson's names coming up for the first time, followed by a tip that others in Congress will be named in the days ahead, makes me think these hearings are being put together in an arc like a dramatic movie or book, with the grand finale coming at the end. The louder and more bombastic El Lardo gets (if that were even possible), the more desperate I begin to think he may be. He's balancing on the blade of a knife right now - he continues to grift off the lunatic fringe as long as he begs for money as a has-been, but when he "declares" he loses the use of that money - it has to be directed to a real campaign. He may be banking on the DOJ backing off once he's an "official" candidate, but I think that ship has sailed. There's too much evidence on record and in the public already. I hope we are both correct!
I believe we, Ellen, with a lot of others, are on the right track.
Incredible testimony. Heroic endurance through it all. And the injustice of it - against election workers, officials, and all the rest. The former president sees everything through a "lens of hate" as per Bob Woodward in an interview of how 45 and Nixon are in many ways alike. If hate is at your core, that means anyone in your orbit, whoever it is, will get it. Hitler too saw the world through paranoia and hate. Stalin as well. Putin today is another. It is kind of like the "dark side". It is always present. How you deal with it becomes the measuring stick of your morality and ethics. I think Mr. Bowers certainly proved his capacity to resist the dark side. Not so others - from lawyers, to elected representatives at the federal and state level ready to engage in and promote violence to overturn an American election. The 2022 elections are going to set the stage for 2024. If, God forbid, or God help us, the gop should take over both houses or either house of congress, just imagine what that could mean. We in the US are being called to fight as strongly for the values of democracy as are the Ukrainians doing all they can to stop Putin and his plans for resurrecting the USSR of the bad old days - days he worships. 45 worships himself. So did Stalin. So does Putin. Just a reminder there were "German Christians" - protestants and catholics - who supported Hitler. Then there were pastors and priests who resisted. Many of them ended up in concentration camps and were executed just before the end of the war. But Hitler lost. Stalin, lost, then won for a while. Putin has danced with the west to make money and now he is pulling the edges of his trap together. It will take everyone to resist what 45 and his crowd are doing. And that means NOT voting for gop candidates. Why? Because the majority of them are NOT Rusty Bowers.
Replying to myself here - the thing about Rusty Bowers, however is this: if you know who were to run in 2024, he would vote for him!!!!!! Now I ask you, how in the world does that make any sense at all? It makes no sense. What this approach PROVES is that the lure, the addiction, to a party first (and policies that are at their core deeply detrimental to democracy in the United States let alone the world) and to citizenship and commitment to the project of a humane world that SEES others as part of the community and not as enemies to be overcome, that SEES that the capacity to earn or even make money is SECOND to ethics and morality. Unfortunately the current situation with the gop (not to mention that there are only 2 political party choices and those choices contain many streams fighting against each other most of the time) means voting gop means voting for Fascism/autocracy. There was a time voting dem meant the same. Then that all flipped - thanks to Nixon, primarily and the "southern strategy" which focused on white supremacy and race. Talk about schizoid personality!
According to FiveThirtyEight as of June 22, 2022, Trump has 54.5% unfavorable and 42.5% favorable approval rating. He doesn’t have anything to sell, except for the 2020 election. This is a guessing game, so here’s my hunch, Trump’s approval percentage will go down. Plenty of Republicans, including Mitch would like to see Trump gone. No politician is more disciplined than DeSantis. TC v. DeSantis, now that’s a match.
MAGA=traitor. ‘Nuf said.
Now that I got that off my chest, there was something that occurred to me today for the first time, and I wonder if anyone else had considered it. Why did the officials in Georgia and Arizona take Trump’s calls? If Joe Biden called, would they have taken the call? If they took the call and ol’ Joe started quizzing them about the vote count, wouldn’t they have told him they can’t discuss that official business, if not just hang up on him?
I know that a call from “the President” is a big deal, even if it was from a corrupt and grifting moron. We unfortunately have elevated the President, whoever it is, to the status of a civil demi-god, which is not a good thing for any democracy. But still, isn’t it a bit mind boggling that anyone would engage with Trump for over an hour while he’s clearly trying to subvert an election and draw you into a criminal conspiracy? Am I missing something? Am I expecting more fortitude than is reasonable? As it turns out, it was a good thing that these public servants let Trump incriminate himself so thoroughly. But that wasn’t the intent in sitting on the phone with him so long, right?
I’m not sure I have a point to this comment. But the very fact of the phone calls did strike me as strange, on reflection.
In both cases, they had taken calls before that weren't recorded, for which afterwards they might have said to themselves, "Nobody's going to believe that happened without a recording," and they suspected (rightly) that there would be another call - at which point they prepared (and also told their staff, like the investigator who recorded him telling her how famous she'd be for "finding the truth"). I think the two elected officials showed themselves today to be the kind of people who were disgusted by Lardo Lardass' behavior, to the point they'd be willing to document it.
That may be giving them more credit than due, but after listening to them today, I think they are that kind of people.
I wish Schiff had asked them why they had decided to record that call! Then maybe we could have testimony about those other calls and what they were like. It would have been enjoyable (for me) to have the explanation you offer above going into the record!
I missed that. Makes sense.