I am a centrist conservative and support our Constitution as written. I am also a fan of Bari and Common Sense is one of the few media sources I spend my limited time reading. I am not, and have never been, a fan of Donald Trump. He is a petty, bombastic, crude, self-aggrandizing buffoon. He also did some incredible things against huge odds during his administration that I fully supported. I voted for him out of resignation and dismay that we could not provide better candidates, in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Many like me are not convinced that the 2020 election was the "most secure ever", and the recent documentary, 2000 Mules, presented a heretofore unrecognized manner in which the election might have been subverted, and possibly produced a fraudulent outcome. This needs to be further investigated. I hope Trump does not run again. He had his day and I cannot stand the thought of another four years of unhinged anti-Trump rage. Biden is the worst president in my lifetime.
That said, I have not watched the Jan. 6 hearings. To be candid, I do not have the time and my past efforts at watching such things has been a futile exercise. All are largely theater intended to obtain or justify a particular political or ideological position and politicians are unable to avoid pontificating when they have a soapbox. I am astounded by this article. Ungar-Sargon admits that the hearing is blatantly partisan yet accepts the testimony at face value. We have countless examples of government functionaries lying under oath during the Russian collusion hoax to de-throne Trump and I would vouchsafe that never in American history has there been such a determined, no-holds-barred effort to delegitimize a duly-elected American president as occurred during Trumps presidency. My view of the videos of the Capital on Jan. 6 was of an unruly, disorganized protest gone bad and I feel this has been typically overblown by the left into some sort of top down attempt at an insurrection. It is much along the lines of "most peaceful protests" during the BLM riots. Are we to believe the progressive narrative and testimony of the left or our lying eyes?
I hope to see a reasoned, civil rebuttal of this terrible article.
You said it better than I ever could. I applaud you.
The Jan. 6 committee is a disgrace, an aberration and its actions have been appalling. Look at what they have done to Peter Navarro and John Eastman as the latest examples.
Weiss was good in her early stages, when she was writing about wokesterism is schools. now she's outsourced a lot of her work, and sends us this kind of bullshit. After what's happened the last 2 years, hard to believe Batya Ungar-Sargon unquestioningly believes what he sees on state media. And Weiss must agree with him to give him air time. But I guess there's still a few of 'em out there.
I was ambushed with auto-renew on my subscription to her substack. If I had had any notice, I definitely would have canceled.
You can always go in and cancel to stop the reoccurring charges. I just did that for exactly the reasons you mentioned. I had paused it a while back, returned to see if it had improved, discovered it hadn’t with this propaganda piece, and cancelled my paid subscription as well as the the publication sending me notifications.
The head of the secret service, Engle, who was actually there, came out immediately after the hearing and said it didn’t happen. He and the agents would like to testify, under oath, that it didn’t happen. Why wouldn’t the show trial J6 “committee” have asked these people up front?
This is a pure Stalinist show trial, and like the trials in the USSR, the simple-minded gullible fools uncritically buy whatever 💩 they are sold no matter how many times the exact same people lie to them.
If Bari wants to keep pushing debunked propaganda, and this is most definitely not the first time, that’s fine. I’m not paying for it, nor am I wasting my time reading it.
It takes a rather large fool to believe the President’s arms are 10ft long and can grab the wheel from his seat. It takes a fool to think they needed to have “testimony” from someone who wasn’t there, but “heard” about it like a 6th grade gossip queen, but the J6 “committee” never actually bothered to get testimony from someone who was actually there about what happened.
This publication has become the joke Weiss supposedly was trying to leave behind..........
Batya Ungar-Sargon may be impressed with the new “details” he heard from the January 6 Committee, but he seems disinterested in details that after a year and a half, have not been provided. Here are some of the ones I have:
What intel did Pelosi receive about potential violence on January 6 and why did she hamstring the Capital Police by dismissing their request for additional force, including as any as 20,000 national guard troops offered by Trump?
Who concocted and spread the lie that officer Sicknick was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher? Why were the autopsy results disproving the lie withheld for 3 months?
Why hasn’t all footage of the event been released, including the footage of unarmed, 90-pound Ashli Babbit being shot to death by Lt. Michael Byrd, ostensibly for posing a threat to him as she tried to crawl through a broken window?
Were there any FBI instigators in the crowd? Were they part of a Red Flag operation like the one they engineered in the attempted “abduction" of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer?
There are plenty more questions to be answered and I’m sure with just a little effort, Bari could come up with a few more.
Yeah and in typical LEFT fashion they didn't allow a defense. The LEFT doesn't allow a defense or a debate because if that would have happened their SHAM would fall apart for everyone to see. Typical LEFTIES. The minute you start talking FACTS and FIGURES they all huff and puff and squash the conversation by either mocking you or calling you a name.
The fact that we went two years and counting during a "pandemic" with so many aggressive polices and mandates and not one public debate happened between the sanctioned expert authorities and the censored expert authorities and there was no public outcry for transparency and debate that amounted to anything fair and balanced shows you how unconscious most of the population is today. Sad.
"Yeah and in typical LEFT fashion they didn't allow a defense".
That's why it's so laughable to hear the leftist “anger” directed at Merrick Garland for his apparent passivity in indicting Trump. Maybe they're too dumb to know that any trial will require cross examination and deposing witnesses but he does. If this is the best Pelosi's Kangaroo Court has I doubt even a partisan hack like Garland is willing to indict and suffer the humiliation and embarrassment he did by classifying moms domestic terrorist's because they objected to their children being labeled racists.
That is one of the more specious positions I've heard. The LEFT doesn't allow a defense? Liz Cheney is a part of the Left? This is a fight within the various Power Elite factions and has nothing to do with "Lefties" or Righties.
"The minute you start talking FACTS and FIGURES they all huff and puff and squash the conversation by either mocking you or calling you a name."
Very excellent points. A broader hearing would touch on at least some of these issues. At the same time, I think the writer of this article is not focused so much on the comprehensive facts of this entire sordid affair - which do deserve investigation - but on the personality and behavior of President Trump. No matter how selective the Jan 6 Committee is of its facts, and no matter how effective his presidency was in many respects, I don't want this guy representing me to the world any more than I want Hillary or Biden.
Not sure why it takes three months to find out Officer Sicknick died of a stroke as opposed to having his head bashed in with a fire extinguisher. Shouldn’t this be obvious within days? When you have such an obvious lie repeated for months in major press organs, you lose faith and interest in their future reporting. I would like to see the New York Times explain/justify this in an article. Also, why were some persons on camera encouraging demonstrators to enter the Capitol never arrested? Hmmm. Who were they? Lastly, how do you have an attempted coup, as it was frequently termed, with virtually no weapons when you can, I think, buy guns at Walmart? The fact that almost no one was armed in a country where guns are widely available makes the argument for a demonstration that went out of control.
Why hasn't Rey Epps been arrested? Why hasn't he been traveling the MSM interview circuit? Why isn't he writing a book about his experience and cashing in? Why was Ray Epps on video urging people to "go into the Capital"? Why has the MSM ignored Ray Epps and those arrested for just walking around? We all need to stop supporting MSM and Businesses that promote corruption, racial division, lawlessness and claim to have the moral high ground.
Thanks NCMom. You said this better than I did. It's a show trial.
The adversary process has served our nation well for over 200 years. The Democrats and their cronies in social media believe they can fool us all by protecting us from "misinformation." You know, "for the greater good." Isn't that convenient how the greater good always benefits them... ... while turning Democrat-controlled cities and constituencies into wastelands. What, really have the Democrats done for black people in the last 60 years? Chicago, Baltimore and other Dem-controlled cities are killing fields. In the schools, teachers make a lot more money (40% more than private school teachers) but the students are learning less. And what they're learning is, whites are inherently evil and can't help themselves. How is that going to help them compete in a world economy?
Rant off.
They haven't fooled all of us. But the publication of this piece shows they're still fooling a lot of people.
"The adversary process has served our nation well for over 200 years"
Agreed. Thus you would have thought McCarthy would have made an honest attempt to get respected Republicans on there, not sabotage it with idiots like Jim Jordan
I think all of us, progressives and conservatives, have to get over canceling our subscriptions and our friendships as soon as we are faced with opinions with which we disagree. Far better to counter them with sound argument and debate
I don't cancel friends or family over political or ideological differences. That has nothing to do with how I choose to spend my money. I also choose to pay for 23 other Substacks that approach their publications from a variety of perspectives. I am personally unwilling to pay for this propaganda, and this is not the first time I have seen this particular publication push debunked propaganda. I am not Bari's personal friend.
I am all for opinions I disagree with, but not paying to read how some Stalinist show trial "changed" someone's mind when they mind changing propaganda was debunked by the people actually there within minutes. While most of his extended family has escaped, my husband has an aunt and first cousins still in Cuba. I can tell you from family how a population itching for a leftist cultural revolution and willing to buy into propaganda ends - lots of poverty, death, and misery.
There isn't good debate about issues or solutions with articles that are this poor in quality (unlike Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi who wouldn't publish this nonsense without at least including the testimony was immediately disputed by those with actual first hand knowledge).
The world would suck if everyone agreed on everything. It would be utter boredom. Part of that is completely respecting that other people will make a different choice than me, which is fantastic, but doesn't change my personal choice on how I spend my own money.
I have not cancelled a single friendship over politics, and I have in-laws who are card carrying socialist conspiracy nutters. I do not subscribe to Mother Jones, or the Washington Post however because thier reporting is garbage despite my being liberal. I do subscribe to the Daily Wire not because I always agree with their conservative viewpoint (I often don't) but because the reporting has integrity. While having an admittedly conservative spin, they usually get the facts right and when they don't they correct the record. I have had several instances in the past where a Common Sense article just didn't fact check and misrepresented things. This was the last straw.
Me too. I am very careful allow differing opinion and will stay subscribed to people I disagree with often if I feel they are bringing an interesting perspective, but this is just National Enquirer garbage. This isn't an opinion, this is heresay and hysteria.
I can't help but find all this outrage pretty funny. When push comes to shove, all conservatives seem to want is a Fox News-style echo chamber that just tells them what they want to hear 24/7.
However many subscriptions BW & CS lose because they chose to criticize Republicans' beloved God-Emperor Trump, I can't imagine they'll be missed. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
How many times has Bari admitted, Russia-Gate was a hoax—as all of us—she fell for it too. This latest bombastic testimony falls right under the same category. This lady "heard" these allegations ??? Really? and we call this treasured testimony?
Daily revelations across the past 6 years left us breathlessly awaiting the cuffs to fall upon Trump's wrists—charges so grim—only to find fake news from our trusted media had hoaxed us yet again.
GOOD FOR YOU. THESE people are either idiots or - so lucky that they literally never had to worry their pretty little heads about anything - ever. I was actually at an earlier rally in DC. ANTIFA AND BLM ARE VERY PRESENT THERE.
You seem like a very precious snowflake. You are now heartbroken over criticism of Trump and your fixed world view? Maybe you are more 'woke' then you think.
BATYA IS A WOMAN. I've recommended her book and YouTube vid's on "woke" and its subversion of media a few times. Another woman, Shoshanna Zuboff is also an author I recommend with a book and YouTube vid's on the tactics of the corporate/surveillance state and its assault on civil liberty and citizen privacy.
That said: For myself, the loathsome venality of the Democratic Party so outweighs any culpability of those accused in the Trump/January 6 hearings that it is painful, loathsome and almost impossible to stay in the room with an electronic device broadcasting it.
I enjoy the articles Ms. Weiss posts here and the cross section of authors she presents. Some pieces lean a little too far toward the red meat spectrum and lack the depth Glenn, Matt and Wesley bring to the fight but she also lends platform and voice too many suffering the everyday consequences of the woke/totalitarian Bund now assaulting us. In fairness she also links us to sources we might pursue in our own search for clarity. This SUBSCRIPTION JOURNALISM thing is a brand new puppy dog and has the potential to grow the truth telling teeth that will free us from the stage show sleight of hand politics like the 1/6 hearings. Don't give up on her yet.
I am an annual subscriber here (and Matt, Glenn, et al.) and will not cancel because of this article. It is useful to read this article as it indicates what is in the mind of the circle on the left that hates President Trump.
Yeah. Have to allow Bari some room to run different opinions and her time to vet is no doubt limited like yours and mine. Anyway provokes good comments.
I understand and respect your point. I pay for another 23 authors on substack, and subscribe to numerous more, with a huge variety of viewpoints. I don't mind reading people with a different perspective and opinion, it's how I learn.
But.......... I also won't personally pay for plainly debunked propaganda as that is free and abundant. I can turn the subscription back on down the road if I chose to, but I think this model only works if there are consequences for becoming the msm. I respect others will come to a conclusion more similar to yours, which is good that we have different reactions to articles like this.
I am in the market looking for truth, and acknowledgement of actual causes and outcomes. I hope Weiss brings this publication back to that place and I feel it's worth my money at some point in the future, but for me today, it's not.
I'm gonna re-read Batya's article with your comments in mind.
Mrs. Weiss seems to have a good social conscience and fair play as do most of the authors she places on Common Sense. I suspect that you and I may share the feeling that many of the well educated observers ensconced behind the shield of financial success underestimate what the players behind the current ascending world fascism are capable of.
Let me recommend a book. THE AION LECTURES: Exploring the Self in C.G. Jung's AION by Edward F. Edinger. It's a slow read but once you get it there's a lot of light for consideration.
I agree Mike. We don't need to become what we are fighting against. Batya is a woman and I do usually enjoy hearing her and reading her. This article is a tough one because this hearing is a dog and pony show for the left and has lost its believability from the start, if they can't handle dissenting views on their committee how can we believe them? We learned some new things from his staff that we should all take into consideration, but it did not sway my mind that this whole thing was promoted for political reasons and the fact that this wasn't a true bi-partisan committee means it can't be taken seriously. From what I can tell Trump handled himself horribly and in response to what appeared to be unfair practices in the election (would be nice to see a real deep dive into how this election was held and exactly how and why we got the outcome we did - if it is all on the up and up there is no problem with this and either way would restore confidence in the process). I am not a Trump fan, but I did like many of his policies and that he would fight hard against the left. Just the mere fact of two sides trying to hold each other in check is important. Honestly, we all need to step back and become more objective if we ever want to get out of this culture war. Bari I am not leaving you! We can't expect you to bat a thousand. Batya, I will keep reading you too, while I may often disagree I learn a lot from you and how you look at issues. Curious to see a response, but even if there isn't one I am still a big Bari fan!
I'm also a fan of the ladies in question. And, I agree that expansion of SUBSTACK possibilities to include special investigative reporting on the smoke screened D.C. hog trough would begin to define a new empowerment of the American national dialogue. Stay strong. Saty clear.
I hope her book craters. I’d never read it after the infantile article she just wrote here. Hundreds of pages if drivel like this? What a waste of time.
That was my indicator that this "witness" (of hearsay) was full of it. Not sure how one would manage to try to grab the steering wheel while riding in the back of a limo.
I'm still amazed how many have such little grasp on reality or human nature that they actually believed as plausible that a US Billionaire, with a beautiful wife and access to gorgeous women, who is a germaphobe, who does not drink or do drugs, would fly to Russia for the purpose of letting hookers pee on him. Trump has a lot of personality quirks and flaws., but all of them point away from Russian hookers peeing of him, not towards it.
Especially now that the witness has been debunked by several and the committee is ignoring that she lied under oath. Its quite appalling. It had destroyed this country’s whatever was left trust in our government.
This isn't a trial. It's a Congressional hearing that is part of an investigation gathering evidence.
And you are focusing on one disputed aspect that Cassidy Hutchinson fully acknowledged was related to her by Tony Ornato (who may very well be lying) to discredit the entire hearing. And it isn't even a terribly important claim. It is a salacious claim that is sucking up all the oxygen despite having little bearing on Trump's attempt to overthrow our constitutional order.
(Not to mention that Trump wasn't riding in the Presidential limo. He was in a smaller vehicle that wouldn't have required his arms to be "10 feet long".) Much of what else she reports are things she witnessed firsthand. She *was* there.
As were virtually all of the other people who testified to the things that happened behind the scenes. White House lawyers and staffers, his own AG, his campaign manager - his *own daughter* for crying out loud.
If you're going to call people "fools", then I'll have to note that it takes a "rather large fool" to side with a man making an unprecedented attempt to remain in office after clearly losing an election that he was almost universally expected to lose by anyone paying attention to the polls and political dynamics of the country, and which he told you *well beforehand* that he was going to dispute if he lost - after having made the same claim about the election he won four years ago.
It's a Democrat propaganda set piece dressed up to look like a congressional hearing.
Please answer this question: When before has a congressional hearing not provided an opportunity for the party opposite to question witnesses?
Please don't point to Kinzinger and Cheney. They were appointed by Pelosi because they are allied with the Dems in their hatred for Trump. It's like, you can have your own lawyer. But the prosecutor gets to appoint him.
I'll be happy to, but ultimately you'll have to ask Kevin McCarthy.
You see, when he provided his initial list of five to Nancy Pelosi it included two congressman who both lent serious credence to Trump's false election fraud claims - which per se is entirely inappropriate on a committee that is investigating the actual facts behind an insurrection spurred by those very same fraudulent claims. Jim Jordan, a key Trump ally, was himself a potential target of the investigation, and Jim Banks made it clear he intended to use the committee to investigate Democrats rather than the actual source of the insurrection.
Obviously, having these two on the committee would have undermined its credibility and threatened to turn it into a referendum on whether the election was stolen, which was already not in dispute. To use an analogy similar to yours, it would have been like having mobsters on a panel investigating the mob.
So Pelosi accepted the other three, but rejected Jordan and Banks. All McCarthy had to do was replace two people who were obviously there to derail the committee in the first place with people whose commitment to discovering the truth wouldn't be so validly and obviously in question.
At that point, McCarthy pulled all five and decided his best bet would be to paint the committee as a partisan witch-hunt. Which has apparently worked for some, as he has spent the time since then lying to the media, claiming that Pelosi wouldn't let him appoint anyone to the committee, and saying that she violated over 200 years of precedent in doing so. And of course, ignoring the fact that rejecting proposed submissions to a select committee is hardly unprecedented, as well as the irony of him attempting to shield an *actual* unprecedented act - refusing to concede a presidential election and plotting to overturn the results - from being exposed to the light of day.
Oh, and a couple more things, Mr. Incarnate. Or may I call you Evil? :-)
Seriously, if what you're saying is that you actually would have liked a truly independent, non-partisan commision to investigate this (like say, the 9/11-commission), the Democrats agreed with you. Which is why they proposed one, and it easily passed the House even with some Republican support. Unfortunately, Mitch McConnel filibustered it in the Senate. His rationale? He claimed it would be a political exercise! After all, they already had two committees in a Democratic-controlled Senate looking into it - what more would a non-partisan, independent commission add?!
So you see, the Democrats tried to give you what you wanted, but Republicans blocked it. Why did the Democrats do this? Because some of them still care about credibility and doing things the right way? Maybe. Because they don't care about their electoral fortunes and are willing to put them on the line for the truth? Of course not. Because they were *extremely* confident in what an independent commission would find, given everything we already know? Bingo.
And for that matter, so was Mitch McConnel. Which is why the last thing he wanted was to plant an electoral time bomb that might go off right when his party might be trying to re-elect (albeit against his better judgement) the very guy he didn't have the balls to deliver the political coup de grace to when he had the chance. Better to leave everything in a state that he could denounce as "partisan" if need be. So thanks to him, what we're left with is this "partisan" House select committee that you don't trust.
But let me tell you where you're making a *huge* mistake in that regard. Because, say what you want about Cheney and Kinzinger - what you can't call them is *partisan*. They're *tanking* their political careers for this. Cheney was the #3 Republican in Congress, and now she probably wont be there next term. Kinzinger was redistricted away in Illinois - think the Democrats are doing him any favors for this? He'd be doomed either way.
You see, that's the real shit. That's when you really know that someone is sincere. They may be motivated by hatred of Trump - but when someone is willing to ignore their own career interests, that has to make you wonder if they have a good reason. Every single one of Trump's defenders - and of those who remain silent - knows that opposing Trump would be committing political suicide. Cheney and Kinsinger are doing just that - all while enraging their base and getting death threats.
If that doesn't mean anything to you, it should. Because those are two people refusing to engage in the kabuki and being *real*.
Don't paint all that you dislike as a failure of the "Libs" that is either ignorant or trying to make a point through manipulation. Failed leadership is failed leadership and there is enough to go around on both sides of the aisle.
LOL!!! Oh yes, gathering "evidence" involves hiring a TV producer named James Goldston, then airing on live television pure gossip from a disgruntled chic that wasn't even there rather than bothering to ask those who were actually there (including the head of secret service Engle, who was actually there, and along with the agent driving immediately refuted said gossip and asked to testify to that under oath). No, she wasn't there. She is repeating what she claims she was "told."
As for fools, every single one of the dozens of Biden disasters was predictable, and actually predicted, and you voted for him anyway because the media told you orange man hurt your feelings. LOL!!!!
Yes, I support a booming economy, school choice so children not as fortunate as mine can go to their excellent and open throughout Covid private school, an open economy, energy independence, fed babies, geopolitical stability, affordable food, normalizing relationships in the middle east, and a national border!!!!
When failing to convince based on sold argument there is always the strategy of throwing up nonsense such as "disgruntled chic", "LOL", "You are so simple its comical..."
Your so-called "disgruntled chic" did not claim to have personally witnessed these events. She personally witnessed enough. She clear stated that she was relaying what she had heard from another source. That by definition is hearsay.
Disappointed with Biden and the Democratic leadership? Stand in line.
It isn’t at all clear that the election wasn’t stolen. Perhaps if the media’s coverage of Trump since 2016 wasn’t so extremely biased there would be less scepticism.
Look, I'm sorry, but if it isn't clear to you, it's because you haven't been paying attention or you get your information from bad sources. I'm not saying this to be mean or to insult you - I want you to understand why you're misinformed.
Nor am I trying to be arrogant. Few people paid more attention to this election than I did, and my expectations of what was going to happen were very well validated by actual events. So if you want to know what actually happened, listen to people who turned out to be well informed. If you want to keep believing something that validates your priors, about Trump or about the mainstream media, keep listening to people who misled you and/or told you what you wanted to hear.
The election has been confirmed in every way imaginable; there have been numerous recounts, audits, and investigations, all of which have found absolutely zero evidence of fraud. There is not a single claim that has withstood scrutiny. A Republican legislator in Michigan who investigated the claims in Antrim County actually found that they were so baseless that he recommended that the state's AG look into prosecuting the people capitalizing on them. Even the absurd "Cyber Ninjas" audit in Arizona confirmed Biden's win, and Pillow Guy's massive summer convention uncovered nothing - only embarrassing Mike Lindell and demonstrating how he was played for a fool by conspiracy theorists.
Trump told you well before the election (just like he did in 2016) that he was going to claim fraud if he lost. Responsible media outlets did everything they could to warn people of the things that Trump was expected to exploit in his entirety predictable claims. The fact that the winner probably wouldn't be known on election night because the high turnout would make the vote take too long to count. The fact that Trump would likely seem to be in the lead on election night because the in-person voting was expected to lean Republican (polling and party affiliation indictated that the mail-in ballots would skew Democratic - something Trump ensured by exhorting his supporters to vote in person), and in most states mail-in ballots couldn't be counted early. Trump was expected to try to exploit this to claim it was stolen overnight - the same crap he tried to pull in 2018 on a smaller scale when he tweeted about having to "go with the election night results". And that's exactly what he did.
The Republicans sent unqualified goons to "monitor" poll sites - what they actually did was intimidate poll workers and file entirely frivolous and baseless affidavits, making various unverifiable and unfalsifiable claims. It was this kind of crap that got Republicans in trouble in the early eighties when they ended up entering into a 35-year consent decree with the Federal government not to send poll watchers or engage in other voter intimidation tactics - conveniently this expired in 2017.
Meanwhile, dishonest politicians like Rand Paul (who knew better) characterized vote submissions from large urban districts, which overwhelmingly skew Democratic, as "late night ballot dumps". Anyone with basic sense can look at a typical purple-state county-by-county electoral map, with its islands of urban blue dotting a sea of rural red, and tell that you should expect Democratic votes to come in clumps.
If you want to blame "media bias" for people's uncertainty, don't blame mainstream media. They responsibly told you what to expect. The fault lies with the outright propaganda from Fox, Newsmax, and OAN, who lied to you about Trump's prospects in this election, then lied again when he lost in order to cover their own asses. They only stopped lying once Dominion Voting Systems filed billion dollar lawsuits against them.
You have been conned by a dishonest and nihilistic political party in thrall to a narcissistic sociopath whose personality cult has taken over the party. They knew who he was in the beginning when they overwhelmingly opposed him, and only threw in with him when politically it was their only option. You can continue to let them deceive you, with the anti-anti-Trump crowd on sites like this giving them the benefit of the doubt because they prioritize battling the excesses of wokeness over the political stability of our country. Or you can wake up to the reality that the far right represents as much of a threat to this country as the far left - and in the short term, a far worse one.
Finally someone NOT willing to be distracted by politics, whataboutism, and those Dems. Ugh! It's important that we have an accounting of what these people have to say. If we are fortunate it will be utilized to prove dereliction of duty, at the very least. He is the number one cheer leader in all of this. He's been grooming those that will let him for years. I find these discussions dishonest when people can't focus on what's right in front of them. He spent over a year telling America if he lost it was because people cheated. He and his goons couldn't find proof of this. Be a grown-up and pass the baton, for God sake.
My recollection is, Trump was asked during his debate with HRC if he would accept the results of the election. He answered as he should have - he'd need to wait and see how it turned out. To say yes, he'd unconditionally accept the results would be buying a pig in a poke.
I don't recall anything about him grooming his followers for years. If you can point to something specific, please provide a link.
Was it OK for Hillary Clinton to claim she was robbed after the 2016 election? You know she did that, right?
If It's OK for her to do that, what's wrong with the answer Trump gave?
It also is not about truth, it is about harming the GOP, anyone with two functioning brain cells will see and understand that fact. So I understand your lack of comprehension abilities.
I’m not siding with Trump. I don’t like him and I don’t want him to be President again. That being said, Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony is suspect for a variety of reasons and I’m projecting that at least some of it will be proven as false. And the people overseeing this farce have zero credibility based on their repeated bungling and constant lying. We all know that there has not been enough evidence - even 18 months later - with a variety of audits, etc. to credibly prove a successfully rigged election. However, there has been plenty of incompetence as well as illegal chicanery unveiled and we need better oversight in future elections to prevent total loss of faith in the election process.
Repeated bungling and constant lying? By whom - the January 6th committee? Or is this another vapid, undirected slam aimed at the amorphous blob of Democrats/MSM/Twitter comprised of peopleof your ilk don't like?
Because you know who has, verifiably lied, literally tens of thousands of times? (Yes, literally.) Trump.
And no, I'm sorry, but I'm not part of your "we all know" circle of confirmation bias. If you think that the numerous audits, investigations, and recounts, which all verified the official counts and turned up nothing but people making demonstrably fraudulent claims, combined with a complete lack of any verifiable evidence that anything improper happened, (even if you are unaware of how Trump telegraphed his scheme well ahead of time) do not constitute the best approximation of "proof" you're going to get that the election was valid, you live in a bubble of ignorance from which you won't escape until you learn what it means to make reasonable judgements about what's likely true and what isn't.
"Stalinist show trial" is hyperbolic nonsense. "State media" is also hyperbolic nonsense. This is an open proceeding, broadcast in real time, unedited. Anyone can skip the commentary offered by the various TV networks- especially if they're watching C-Span.
The Trump Republicans don't get to characterize the hearings as a partisan witchhunt; the GOP House leadership voluntarily made the decision to decline to participate in the hearings as advocates for Trump's side of the argument (such as it is). That voluntary refusal to participate might as well be a nolo contendre plea. Anyone who isn't committed to Trump's crisis cult realizes this. The bitter-end Trumpites are ignoring or mischaracterizing facts and twisting logic in ways that will only be shown up as more obvious over time.
House Republicans refused to provide members b/c a) two of their own choices were rejected by Pelosi, and b) Pelosi appointed Cheney and Kinzinger - two Republican Trump-haters - to take their place. Surely I don't need to explain to you, it shows a fundamental lack of fairness.
Same question I asked Eric73: When, EVER, has that happened before?
He doesn't have an answer to that. I don't expect you will either, Mascot.
I don't know if it's ever happened before. The Congressional rules governing the proceeding allowed Speaker Pelosi to exert that veto power, so I would not be surprised to find precedents. I also wouldn't be surprised to find that there isn't a precedent, because the situation being investigated has no precedent. But it's your insinuation, so do the legwork to back it up.
Nothing was stopping GOP House leader McCarthy from substituting 2 other Republican House members and offering up a new slate of 5 members to Speaker Pelosi. Instead, he basically ceded the choice of Republicans to her. Even former President Trump is now on the record as being displeased by McCarthy's decision in that regard.
I'm more interested in the testimony itself than the choice of the interrogators. And in that regard, I've found the substance of the June 16 testimony by former VP Pence advisers Greg Jacobs and Judge Michael Lutting as considerably more authoritative and damning than anything else that I've heard thus far.
But I do get why Trump defenders would prefer to ignore the June 16 hearing in favor of focusing exclusively on any procedural squabble or scrap of testimony that they can find elsewhere to exploit, as if it discredited the entire hearing process- because anyone out to discredit Jacobs and Luttig would be in over their heads. I honestly think it's a pity that there aren't any pro-Trump buffoons on the House hearings panel, because I really would have liked to hear them trying to impeach the testimony of Greg Jacobs and Judge Lutting with an adversarial line of questioning.
NC... great post, "pure Stalinist" no question, but it is good to see that these people are "out there", we should be aware of the other side, understand just how knavery they become...please.
Hate to see you go, NC Mom. I actually look forward to reading (and usually liking) your comments.
Also have to say I'm surprised by the depth of anger in the comments on this article. Most of us (rightly) deplore the NY Times for firing a great editor who dared to run an op-ed piece it's core readers found objectionable. Yet here many of us are doing the same thing: "firing" Bari (by unsubscribing) because she ran a piece we find objectionable. As the top commenter, who did not cancel his subscription, suggests: if you think the article is full of holes, then tell us where and why. Substack (and Bari, Matt, Glenn, etc.) are great not just as a counterweight to the shrieking nonsense of the MSM, but also because of the thoughtfulness, vigilance, and devotion of its readership to accuracy and truth.
My read of the article was somewhat different than many of the commenters'. My takeaway is that, while the Dems have conducted themselves in their now-customary putrid manner, Trump and his people behaved even more putridly on this than we already knew. (Which is saying something.... Does anyone think the speaker of the Arizona house is not credible?)
Anyway, sorry to see you go, NC mom, and hope to see you in Matt's comments section.
A shrewd move. Now that you'll no longer be able to comment, you'll be saved the effort of having to defend Donald Trump's indefensible attempt to declare himself Autocrat-In-Chief by trying to arm-twist, cajole, and badger VP Pence into bypassing the Constitution. You must realize that lackeying for Trump is a task that's only going to get more difficult from here on out.
LOL!!! The strawman that lies at the foundation of why stupid humans repeat the same mistakes stupid humans before them made - the ridiculous belief that we can't learn lessons from history because we weren't "actually there" is exactly why "never again" never actually happens. Your argument is right up there with all the times people swore "it's different this time" when it never really is.
The analogy to Stalinist show trials fails on the face of the facts. It's plainly ridiculous, to anyone who hasn't allowed their partisanship to override widely acknowledged history.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Common Sense was a place for sensible rationale readers - those that can't stand wokeness - but also not in thrall of Q-Anon and the cult of Trump. Those willing to hear a variety of opinions. Unfortunately, because Bari Weiss was so effective against the left, she has attracted brainwashed cultists such as yourself that would normally hang out on 4Chan and Breitbart. Bye Bye!
I am unsubscribing now. If this is what these contributors are going to offer then I have no time for it. To be clear, I welcome opposing views and opinions (they are critical to free speech and democracy) but I draw the line at fawning over show trials orchestrated by the party in power and that deny due process and cross examination to the accused (whoever that may be). I also have no issue with a full transparent hearing on 1/6. Let’s find out what really happened (eg, what role Nancy Pelosi and others played in denying the requested security at the Capitol and who the agitators were who were repeatedly caught on video). Why are they refusing to show the 1000s of hours of security camera footage?
More broadly, and as stated above, I’m disappointed that a piece like this was given the green-light given all of the blatant lies that have been force fed to us by the MSM for years only to be debunked repeatedly. Just yesterday we learned that the 1/6 committee’s star witness (who spewed nothing but unchallenged hearsay testimony) is being refuted by the secret service members who were actually present. Enough!
If you think this piece was "fawning" then you're full of shit about "welcoming opposing views and opinions"
"When I first learned that the January 6 Committee was planning to air its hearings on primetime, I was deeply skeptical. The gross spectacle of that day wasn’t some secret scandal that, like Watergate, required deep reporting to uncover the truth. "
"I could think of few things less urgent than actions committed a year and a half ago by a president who no longer holds public office at a time when so many are making agonizing decisions like whether to buy meat for dinner or use the money for gas and settle for rice and beans instead. "
"For months now, I’ve been pointing out how self-indulgent it was for these politicians to demand that we endlessly empathize with the trauma they suffered on January 6 because of the danger posed by a riotous mob—while they refuse to do anything about the life-threatening danger that their constituents have learned to live with."
"It also felt wrong to me that there were no Trump supporters on the committee to cross-examine witnesses, and I was deeply put off by the highly produced nature of the spectacle, which seemed designed to electrify a moribund base. "
"I’m still not convinced that January 6 was an insurrection. It still seems to me that, beyond a handful of extremists, January 6 was a riot that got out of hand, and that a selfish President Trump hoped he might profit from the chaos."
"I’m also not convinced that his actions on January 6, however heinous, are enough to erase Trump’s policy legacy"
"I still feel sickened by the fact that many of these politicians tweeting endlessly about that day are not lifting a finger to help their own constituents, who are living daily with the kind of chaos and violence they supposedly abhor."
It’s the classic sh*t sandwich. Positive comments on both ends with the real message in the middle. So maybe not fawning, but apparently taking anything the hearings say hook line and sinker.
Batya seems pretty naive to me and this article is very short on questioning what is said at the hearings. We are in a post truth world where people routinely lie for what they perceive as the greater good. I would expect more skepticism from someone who writes here.
Do you expect more skepticism, or do you expect a particular point of view to be articulated here and are disappointed you didn't get it?
I find it gob-smacking the number of people who are wailing in agony over how the site has supposedly been captured by the left when I have been fretting over the exact opposite. The fact that this site routinely blasts the MSM for every mistake and misperception yet ignores the outright fabrications on Fox News/Newsmax/OAN. The fact that it has no problem calling out cultural authoritarians on the left while disregarding political authoritarians on the right. The fact that with a disgraced president who tried to overturn our constitutional order threatening to do so again and a Republican party enabling the installment of election deniers in key positions of state authority, this site has had almost nothing to say about this clear threat to our Republic and spends more time defending the Canadian trucker convoy.
This site publishes an anti-Trump article once in a blue moon and has people up in arms threatening to cancel their subscriptions over it. The most critical post has more likes than the article itself. That says something about the actual audience by whom this site has been captured.
The entire D.C. sideshow seems to be paid cover for the continued looting, of not just the hard earned treasure of everyday Americans, but a direct assault on the culture and moral center of their lives. A muddling of reason and dialogue, an obfuscation and twisting of the facts purposefully intended to prevent the discussion and creation of real solutions.
I'm a fan of Mrs. Ungar-Sargon and her work on how "woke" is compromising media. I think some of the negative reaction here is our personal disgust at being continually ping-ponged by the corrupt MSM/Democratic party machine. Experiencing the Presidency and America hostage to the transparent Russia Gate lie followed by the exploitation of 1/6 to further evade dealing with the consequential damaging realities Americans are suffering as the result of D.C. ineptitude and graft is a serious trigger in itself. Mrs. Ungar-Sargon somehow pulled it.
In actuality Trump, the 1/6 hearings and MSM/"woke" are only symptoms of the diseased utopian pathology being utilized by totalitarian finance to rationalize their further imposition of a big tech/surveillance state/corporatist CCP style feudalism. This entire airball is simply the new version of the shining object in the path of the monkey, give me free labor, personal exploitation of resources while the consequences of my actions destroy the world and, I'm gonna get away with it. It's no different than Ludlow, Colorado or Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Just my opinion, Miles. Calm down. Batya’s “mind has been changed” by this sham political theater so I take that as tacit support for their “findings”. I think that is pretty naive on Batya’s part but that is her opinion and she is entitled to it…and I am entitled to mine.
You're entitled to your opinion; you're not entitled to both be triggered by differing opinions (have no time for it, draw the line, disappointed it was published, etc.) while at the same time patting yourself on the back for welcoming disagreement. Pick one or the other.
And you are entitled to question her reasoning ability. Just because someone changes their mind about something doesn't mean they are right. They just changed their mind.
I look at this as a way of gaining cred with Conservatives. It doesn't work when all you have are weak testimony examples from a sham proceeding.
"I draw the line at fawning over show trials orchestrated by the party in power"
Did you call the Benghazi hearings (all of them) a show trial, too? Or was that show trial OK because Republicans ran it?
"and that deny due process and cross examination to the accused (whoever that may be)."
What denial of due process? The accused, Donald Trump, is welcome to testify to the J6 committee, whenever he wants. He only has to show up and answer questions under oath. Whether he does is entirely on him, not the committee.
Republicans had their chance to staff the J6 committee with intelligent members. McCarthy chose Jim Jordan and other buffoons. When Pelosi correctly objected, McCarthy said, "Then I appoint no one, you're on your own." Pelosi chose two Republicans and launched the investigation. McCarthy fucked his own party with his refusal to take this committee seriously.
"we learned that the 1/6 committee’s star witness (who spewed nothing but unchallenged hearsay testimony) is being refuted by the secret service members who were actually present."
First, it was not hearsay. She accurately reported what she was told by the Secret Service team and/or the Chief of Staff, and said so right up front: "This is what they told me." She did not say she witnessed the actions, she said she was told about it by the Secret Service. Second, her testimony has not been "refuted" until the agents and Mark Meadows appear before the J6 committee and testify under oath as to their version of events. Which means the committee will be able to ask, "If Trump did not grab for the steering wheel or assault the agent, why did you tell her he did? Are you lying to us now or were you lying to her then?"
Finally, this is not a courtroom, it's a congressional hearing. The rules of courtrooms do not apply, just like they didn't in the Benghazi hearings. Condemn both or neither, you can't pick and choose.
there are certainly similarly to the Benghazi hearings and these hearings, I paid very little attention to either. Here are a couple of major distinctions, please correct me if I am wrong:
1) Benghazi hearings did not prohibit the dems from choosing who would sit on the committee unlike these hearings
2) During Benghazi hearings, Dems controlled the presidency and DOJ, so there was no real way to do the hearings besides congressionally (unlike today when the Dems control Presidency and DOJ, DOJ currently doing prosecutions on this subject matter)
Exactly. And the Benghazi disaster needed hearings. An Ambassador and other American officials were assassinated. And the Secretary of State had refused repeated requests from the Ambassador for added security over the previous six months. That needed a Congressional hearing to find out how this could have happened.
"...She accurately reported what she was told . . ." is the very definition of hearsay - an out of court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
She testified about what SHE was told directly. That makes it not hearsay. If the agents want to be sworn in and testify as to what they said, they can, and it wouldn't be hearsay either.
In any case, it doesn't matter. This is not a criminal or court proceeding, it's a congressional committee hearing.
Fundamental fairness always applies. This is an inquisition, meaning that it combines the roles of investigator, prosecutor and judge into one. The Dems had the opportunity to make it at least appear to be a fair and balanced proceeding and didn't take it. After that, everything it does is tainted. They knew that, but did it anyway, a fact that strongly suggests they didn't and don't care about anything but their preferred outcome. If you think any sort of proceeding in which only one side gets to present witnesses, cross-examine, offer evidence, etc. is fair, I strongly suggest you think again.
"The Dems had the opportunity to make it at least appear to be a fair and balanced proceeding and didn't take it."
To the contrary: Democrats did this by the fairness book. This committee contains two powerful Republican congresspeople, one of whom is co-chair of the committee: Liz Cheney, one of the hardest-right Republicans in the nation, who voted with Donald Trump 93 percent of the time in his four years in office. If this were as "one-sided" as you claim, there would be zero Republicans on the committee. Instead, Democrats AND Republicans are asking questions, offering evidence, and cross-examining witnesses without showboating.
You would have preferred Jim Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene? They would have made this a clown show, not the fair examination of who did what when that it is.
I strongly suggest you rewatch the Benghazi hearings if you want an example of an inquisitional witch hunt.
I would add the priority of out elite and media class is disconnected from reality. IN other news the greatest human rights atrocity in our life time occurred at the border, but oh wells!
I will also not renew my subscription is Weiss keeps including writers who accept and believe the hearings are fair and reasonable when even the democrats admitted to staging and producing the televised event. Not political hearing but event to stop Trump becoming President again. Especially after this Biden administration which Hunter Biden gave us substantiated proof of his entire family’s corruption and Biden’s allowing so far over 2 million illegals and more growing by the day, gas prices at these high levels due to Biden shutting down the pipeline and stopping domestic production Donald J Trump is the only one to turn this around. Yes. He really does need to save America. This J6 circus thinks we can’t think and reason for ourselves. If this forum continues to publish idiots who believe the J6 lies presented I will not continue to support or read it. Very disappointing I really thought Weiss was smarter than this. I liked the fact I did not agree with her on everything it this article just wasted my time and disgusted me enough to waste more time on this response.
Read your entire comment, but really want to draw attention to the fact that we have pretty good evidence and Intel that our sitting president has committed treason while he was the VP and perhaps is still committing treason. His son was clearly engaged in illegal or unethical acts while he was VP and yet, here we are watching the LEFT orchestrate their sham North Korean Style Propaganda show for everyone to see. They clearly think little of the American people and perhaps rightly so.
Ungar-Sargon is not a left wing shill, she’s a balanced journalist in general, and one of the few I’ve come to trust even if I don’t always agree with her.
I think she’s had a rush to judgment here, but she shouldn’t be completely discounted for that. Only chastised perhaps to hold off and dig deeper.
She did not say anything of significance except there has been no evidence that President Trump or his team didanything to cause the Jan. 6 Capitol incident. Everything else is piling on Orange Man Bad.
She said this and it's not even true: "As the rioters at the capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and erected a gallows outside the Capitol, President Trump said “Mike deserves it,” according to Tuesday’s testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. "
Cheney claimed that as a Trump quote, but nothing in Hutchinson's testimony stated that as a Trump quote. Rather she paraphrased Meadows saying "You heard him, he thinks Mike deserves it", and the "it" is undefined - could be deserving to be called out by the mob in general for not doing the goofy override Trump wanted, or deserving hanging.
Sorry, when someone writes a piece of crap like this, I disregard them. Left, Right, or Center. My bandwidth is too small to be reading people who I don't think are smarter than I am. My judgement as this author is a sucker. So buh-bye!
I find this comment about the article being bullshit and the fact that Bari would dare to run something that disagrees with your "bias" means you would and no doubt will unsubscribe. I thought I had finally "found my crowd" - those who could listen to others with whom they disagreed in the odd chance that one could learn something and get out of ones owns balloons and debate with respect and civility ,and a little humility
alas, now it seems, that some of the commentators on Common Sense have lost theirs. Instead, there is the same assuredness that I and I alone have the TRUTH and anything that goes against MY truth is not worth $5.00 a month.
Not a whole lot different from the Tucker Carlson crowd.
I am one of "Tucker Carlson crowd." How can we fight the "cancel culture" if we fall prey to the same type of thinking? Bari Weiss has created a platform for dialogue. Don't abandon her. She is a strong centrist. We need centrists, do we not?
My wife is progressive and listened to the hearings yesterday. We had a good talk about the nature of Hutchinson’s testimony as evidence. She says that she heard a number of things; the truth or falsity of any assertions she heard should be given minimal weight; it is weak as hearsay evidence. The fact that she HEARD these items IS evidence that she heard them. She should have been cross examined to possibly discredit her testimony (aka impeach her testimony). Then we can call as witnesses the people from heard she heard these comments to see what they observed. At some point, we get to the people who were with the president.
As to the statement that there were people armed with AR-15s, the truth of falsity of that assertion is not important, she can testify that she heard warnings to that extent. Once again, we need to call as witnesses the people who supposedly made these statements to see what they remember saying and what they knew at the time.
The committee members knew that Hutchinson had only hearsay testimony to give and they knew what she would say. That is why they called her. She would create inflammatory new rumors that credulous "journalists" like Batya and Bari would spread like wild fire without ever considering their validity.
The committee's only reason for existing is to smear Trump, not to get at the truth.
You're such a hypocrite. "I thought I had finally "found my crowd" - those who could listen to others with whom they disagreed..." We've written things you disagree with, so now we're awful.
"... Not a whole lot different from the Tucker Carlson crowd..." You're all peace, love, brotherhood, and tolerance. Except for those haters/racists/Nazis in the Tucker Carlson crowd. Don't kid yourself. You hate us. It's not enough we tolerate that which we don't like. We have to embrace it. If we don't think males should participate in women's sports, we hate trans people, and we're evil. Isn't that right? It's you who are the hater. You hate us.
You say those taking umbrage with this article are doing so because it's critical of the "orange messiah"? Just about ALL of the comments I've read that are annoyed by the essay relate to the sham investigation with no defense and the age old (now) hook line and sinker gullibility of those who loathe the "orange messiah". Pelosi orchestrated the make up of the committee, excluding the two R congressmen who would have questioned the witnesses from an opposing viewpoint. Only you have shown an infatuation with Trump in these comments. It would serve you to reread the comments to show your bias, Miles.
What a joke. You actually are the one prejudging this. You insult anyone questioning this as a Trump stooge. Well, the opposite can be true too. I think you only like the hearings because you are getting all the “Orange Man Bad” porn that you crave.
See how that works? If you think it’s unfair then tough sh*t
Agree 100%. I am here to see different opinions. Calling this article a BS and unsubscribing show to me that there are tons of people that want to hear what they want to hear. I do not share all opinions presented in Common Sense, but I like that they are exposed here.
So I disagree with Batya. So what. I am not going to unsubscribe. I learn more from people I disagree with; it helps me understand what I believe in. Bari puts out more content than Taibbi and Greenwald combined. I will discontinue my subscriptions to them before I discontinue my subscription to Bari.
Does it bother you at all that some of these different opinions are falsehoods? Hutchinson's testimony about Trump assaulting his secret service detail and trying to grab the steering wheel of his limo has already been shown to be false (NBC reported it). And her testimony is all hearsay. We'll probably find out that more of what she told the committee is false. For example no one had an AR-15 near the capital on Jan. 6, but it makes for a good smear.
People like you are so effing condescending. You act like you know what people are thinking. It's a common thread I'm seeing of the people who don't like the criticism.
Maybe think about why the criticism is there. From a non-condescending I know better standpoint.
so you have no idea who i am or what i think other than a comment I made - and you - knowing who i am from your better standpoint have judged me as condescending. It wasn't the criticsm i minded - it was the way it was offered . but never mind. You go your way and I'll go mine.
I agree with you. I joined a few substack communities in the first place because of my great concern about gaslighting children and turning society upside down over Gender Ideology, apparently started by the Mengeles like Dr. John Money. I'll stick around awhile for anything more Bari might post regarding schools, etc. but otherwise I enjoy the reader comments far more than most articles. For that reason, I hope some of ya do stick around. - LM
Although Common Sense has been my heretofore favorite publication, I too am cancelling because of this article and a couple of other recent ones. Bari is outsourcing too much and I don’t know why she’s choosing authors like this one, but it’s not a good sign. I don’t know what I’ll find to replace this site (and the intelligent comments made by the readers- my favorite part). Any suggestions are welcome.
This doesn't exactly answer the question about another publication but I think Victor Davis Hanson is a very clear thinker. I just read a great piece by him:
The Left's infantile tantrums. Right. Like, for instance, incessantly crying over losing an Election and becoming the first president to not honor a peaceful transition of power.
Go back and look at what a complete embarrassment Trump made of that State of the Union Address. You'll see why Pelosi tore up her copy.
Victor Davis Hanson is another joke Flight-93 "conservative", who used to be respected among conservatives and now has more sensible Republicans wondering if he ever wasn't a loony authoritarian. You'll find plenty of those at "American Greatness", along with lots of thinly veiled racism (or not so thinly veiled, like the infamous"Cuck Elegy"). Put simply, AG is one of those sites that makes it that much more difficult to argue that white supremacy isn't experiencing a resurgence.
If all you want is criticism of the left, there are plenty of people and sites that will gladly lead you down a right-wing rabbit hole. They'll happily cater to the illusion that Donald Trump is just a wrongly maligned, misunderstood guy hated by the left simply because he flouts their pieties.
Or you could stick with a site that up until now you trusted to give it to you straight - until they told you something you didn't want to hear.
So you won't tolerate someone who has been a staunch defender of Republicans and critic of Democrats giving you her honest opinion of the Jan 6th hearings? Do you really just want a site that criticizes only the left and otherwise engages in apologism on the right? That certainly isn't what I signed up for.
No, I don’t. But this piece was sloppy. Not worthy of what I previously considered to be a superior journalistic site. As someone else commented, I want to read pieces by those who are “smarter” (more informed) than I am. I want to learn something from every piece. That didn’t happen here. It’s a slippery slope, and I’m concerned that this piece exhibits the beginnings of a descent into ordinariness.
You are little different than the cancel culture wokesters. In many ways worse- as you are so brazenly hypocritical. If you leave, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Orange man cultists are possibly the only thing worse than cancel culture CRT lefties.
Hard to recommend a replacement substack Aimee. Unfortunately I'm a critic. It's hard to find a writer that sooner or later doesn't disappoint me.
For different reasons, I'm not renewing w/ Alex Berenson.
I like what Glen Greenwald writes, but think he can be a bit wordy, and slow to get to his point.
Robert Malone has been pretty level-headed and steady. He's targeting a different audience than Bari Weiss. Lately some of his stuff has been highly technical, and difficult for me to follow. But that's b/c of MY limitations. That aside, I can't really find anything about him to criticize.
My problem with Glenn Greenwald is that there can be several weeks where there is no new content. The same with Matt Taibbi. At least Bari has regular content every week. I might drop Greenwald and Taibbi and pick another writer in their place.
I'm a critic about almost everything, so this is FWIW.
Don't disagree w/ you about Greenwald's content. In addition, I wish he would sharpen up his writing. He has good ideas and observations, but when he puts them down in print or does a podcast, he's wordy. Wish he would be a little more respectful of his audience's time.
When I'm judging what content to give my time to, second thing I look at, after the title (and short summary if available), is how much time will it require. If more than I want to give, I go on to the next thing.
For someone like him, I recommend "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. The whole thrust of the book is for writers to get rid of excess verbiage that adds no value.
I didn’t like the auto renew feature either and posted something about it. I most likely would have renewed but it would have been nice if it was my decision.
You have a good point and I have questioned that too - however my point is just that if some security measure was mandated for the election it should have been followed - and no one seems to care that it wasn’t
Rick did a great job. While I agree with the early and largely negative sentiments expressed regarding the content here in the comments, I appreciated this piece and think Common Sense subscribers should consider Bari's running a business.
I didn't watch the "hearings," having read Sharyl Attkisson's journalism documenting the literal mountain of lies spewed out of the left and their sycophant accomplices in the legacy media, the summary was useful to me. I took a lot of it with a grain of salt.
Point being, the author wrote well and expressed a legitimate point of view, giving the commenters fodder for debate. Bari is looking for smart journalists to build her business, they won't all be fully aware of the broader situation. Most people are not.
As usual, I learn as much from the comments as I do the piece sometimes. Case in point today: look at Brad Casalvieri's background on Hucthinson, Michelle Styles background on our founders understanding of the fall of Rome and the relevance of their wisdom today, or my favorite, Daviid Lawrence Jorling's background on the western broadcast of ABC news calling out the likely fraud of some of Hucthinson's comments.
Back to Bari and her business, this author lacked some important context - okay, see above dear author. More importantly, Bari's woo'ing democrats, hoping to share facts that will influence their point of view and quite literally save our country and protect our children's future. So, for the super negative commenters, not Naomi, remember we are here to support and improve Common Sense. We can't make this an echo chamber, she and we, need to woo.
I don’t want an echo chamber, either, which is why this publication is so important for me. I’ve read many articles from this author before that were excellent, so even if this one doesn’t hit the mark I wouldn’t want to miss out in the future. I haven’t read her book about how woke media is destroying democracy, but I would agree with that statement alone.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I admit I love the comments section as much or more than I do the actual newsletter. There are more than just a few insightful people here who are willing to share their take in a measured manner. I never come away from Common Sense without some additional knowledge or perspective. That is a gift that far exceeds the price of my subscription. This newsletter and it’s readers are a terrific foil for the idea that civility and wisdom are dead.
Exactly. I subscribed because I value the voices of sanity and common sense. I also wanted to participate in the discussion. I love reading comments and learning what others think and why and in this setting it's mostly civil and thoughtful and I appreciate that as well. I always learn something new. Isn't that what LIFE is about, learning and growing together?
I think we all know Bari's leanings but I give her credit for allowing the freedom to offer unbridled comment. To her discredit, the commenters are often more illuminating the the authors she publishes. It' bothers me too that we have to go elsewhere to read what they did to Navarro and others. Are you listening Bari? How about giving Navarro some air time?
Bari's contributors nearly all come from the Left side of the political spectrum. We have some mighty fine writers on the right side as well but they are not represented on Common Sense.
I would say that Bari is a centrist. For instance, I’m to Bari’s left on abortion. (Yup, deal with it.) Her choice of Mike Pompeo and Condoleezza Wright as interviewees I consider right-wing (I’m not criticizing these choices, just pointing them out). She defended the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, which I thought was justified, and it put her at odds with the left. She defends Abigail Shrier’s work on the trans issue and shares Common Sense with Shrier to give her articles a wider audience, even though Shrier has a Substack of her own. She published Katie Herzog on the trans ideological corruption of science and medicine and the use of cancellation to destroy the careers of doctors who insist that the sexual binary is real. (Gender-critical thought is deemed by the left to be irrevocably right-wing.) She also gave her podcast to a defense of the Central Park Karen in an excellent interview with black conservative Kmele Foster.
I could go on and on. I guess my point is that I, a life-long liberal who have extricated myself from the censorious, ideologically compromised left side of the aisle, whatever that even means anymore, appreciate Bari’s unclassifiable mixture of insights and topics. I often do not agree with her. I often find Nellie Bowles’ TGIF segments to be superficial and poorly researched, including her annoying use of the pronoun “she” to describe Lia Thomas. And for the record, I am disappointed regarding this piece by Ungar-Sargon. I shook my head while reading it and thought, no, just no, you have drunk then Kool-Aid, my friend, take a chill pill and start over. But OK, whatever.
I will continue to support Bari. She is honorable, hard working, articulate, very bright, a genuine seeker of the truth, with a deep respect for the First Amendment. Her choices are going to piss me off sometimes. This is normal. I cherish her work because I learn things, and sometimes I even agree with her.
I’m probably to the right of Bari on nearly every issue, which I’m guessing makes me far to the right of you, Beeswax, on nearly every issue. But I agree wholeheartedly with ever word of your last paragraph.
I would like to encourage all the regulars here to continue their subscriptions. We cannot get emotional about a POS article, as we are all here to discuss things. I'm taking it month-by-month.
Having said that, I will say to Bari: if you want to continue to be taken seriously by the people who put you here, start publishing some work by conservatives. Anything short of that, and you are open to the charge of hypocrisy. You, in fact, have NOT shown balance in your choice of material
I agree there is no balance in the selection of writers and articles. The balance seems to come from the readers who then post commentary. It has been clear to me for a while now that the majority of the posters on these threads are conservatives. I often find the commentaries more interesting and informative than the piece that sparked all the discussion. That is certainly true in this case where the instigating article is demonstrably inferior in many ways, including facts.
Hopefully Bari didn't publish this with the hope of running off the more conservative commenters. In her previous post there were some comments that Bari's comments space was being overtaken by 'right-wingers.'
It’s Common Sense from the left side of the spectrum. We have National Review for the mostly sane right side. Taken together they present a possible normal dialogue that gets lost in the WP/NYT/CNN/MSNBC/FOX interpretation of political dialogue.
I have to disagree on national review. They sold out a long time ago. Andy McCarthy who I really liked, had a terrible article on Jan 6. I know David French is not there anymore, but he is the problem with "conservatism" iMO. He is brilliant but he is more consumed with the process than the results. I feel he would rather lose gracefully and hold his head up high on principal, then realize that human nature is not always logical and cut and dried.
Agreed. I've read some really good columns by Kira Davis. She did a piece on kids and the gender confusion push that summed up its inherent problems very well.
Everyone has a choice. My comment was responding to the suggestion that Navarro publish something.
Do you imagine that DOJ would not withdraw the indictment if he agreed to honor the subpoena and testify before the committee? Maybe he’s weighing the option of a pardon should there be a Republican President in 2024. Hard to say.
And my guess is he'll have plenty to say, after being forced to spend a half million dollars on lawyers. That's what this all really about. It's what government inquisitors do to punish and financially ruin anyone in their sights. Just ask General Flynn who was coerced by the Mueller inquisitors into pleading guilty to a non-crime so he and his family would not become destitute. Navarro had the integrity and balls to give the middle finger to all the stooges running Pelosi’s show trial. If the JustUs Dept. ever puts him on a real trial my bet is the press won’t even cover it because he’ll expose facts they don’t want to hear.
When we the American people understand we are being serially abused by our government. The January 6 committee is like the very concept of January 6 itself a total abusive scam. Arrests of Navarro and Eastman are, like everything else originating in the Biden administration, at total embarrassment. Yes, Donald Trump may not be our favorite person but yes, he did a far better job than many of the other Presidents of our lifetimes. It is about the Constitution! Elect constitutionalists and those who have the adequate brain power to interpret it correctly.
A group of people stormed the U.S. capitol and were, for the most part, out of control for quite awhile. It is COMPLETELY normal that this would be investigated. Kevin McCarthy choosing to not have any Trump supporters on the committee is on him.
WTF are you talking about? Kevin McCarthy was allowed to have the same number of Rs as Ds on the committee and his choices were rejected by Pelosi. This is a joke and a sham and everyone should understand that this is not how a government representative of the people should work.
Two of McCarthy's 5 choices were rejected by Speaker Pelosi, who was apparently within bounds in exercising the power to do so. Not all of them, the way you're making it sound. And nothing was stopping McCarthy from picking two different choices and re-submitting the GOP slate. But McCarthy realized at that point what a gift that Pelosi had given him, by providing him with a pretext to boycott the hearings.
Seems to me we the American people are being royally played. I understand there are two sides here but due to the monstrous, despicable games being played by the “Democrats” they have destroyed any and all possible credibility they may have once possessed.
I didn't say anything about McCarthy, lol. Pelosi is a joke of a wasted person and should not be representing we the people... The Jan 6 committee is a joke. No it certainly is not how a government by and for we the people should work.
Kevin McCarthy appointed 5 members who are Republicans, which is what the rules for the committee required. Your attack is on Speaker Pelosi who illegally rejected his appointments.
Also, when was there a committee to investigate the riots that disrupted the hearings for Justice Kavanaugh for several days? That was certainly worse than January 6.
1) DOJ has been investigating, so there really isn't a need for the Dems in Congress to do it, and with Schiff's record on these hearings, how can there be any real trust
Unless I’m mistaken, Pelosi only rejected two of the five: Jordan who was involved directly in some of the matters under investigation and Banks who said he would use the hearings to “prove” the election was stolen. So Jordan has a rather clear conflict of interest and Banks rejected the committee’s limited scope. McCarthy then pulled the other three nine of whom had no similar issues and so now we are where we are.
Even Trump now says McCarthy was wrong in not placing GOP members on the committee - which suggests that he recognizes how damaging some of the testimony against him has been. Of course, his reason was that the members would leak everything to his team in advance which is hardly a reassuring expectation.
In my view, Trump has irrevocably damaged his legacy which, at some in the future, would have focused on the good things he accomplished and for which his Administration was never given credit in real time. Truman, Hoover and others went from very much out of favor to higher favorability in later years. For all his vaunted gut instincts, Trump might have traded what he saw as a short term gain for long term opprobrium. Everyone made choices but in this case, Trump might have been better served had he listened to his advisors and told the Giulianis, Eastmans and Clarks “you’re fired.”
Funny thing is Adam Kinzinger will lose his seat in November because of redistricting and Liz Cheney will lose it because she's a loser. And they hated Trump so know one believes they represent an opposing POV. You can obfuscate all day long and it doesn't change what Pelosi did to change the committee and it's ultimate conclusion. But like with everything the Dems do, this will backfire. They always overplay their hand.
Anytime trust is broken in a relationship it cannot work well. The American people's trust with this government is increasingly broken. Both political parties are corrupt although there is some hope of current governors who have gained some impressive ground and seem to understand more about the Constitution.
C'mon Scott, that would be a fair criticism of McCarthy if it was accurate, but it's a lie.
The GOP appointed reps to be on the J6 committee but they were 'rejected' by Pelosi. Fyi, this is the first time in the history of a Congressional hearing that one side wasn't even allowed to choose who represented them.
It is completely normal that it is investigated. It is completely outrageous that people are spending a year + in jail awaiting trial on glorified misdemeanor/trespassing charges while thousands of people who participated in far more violent riots in other cities are getting off lightly (many with minimal pre-trial imprisonment).
People who were violent on Jan 6 deserve to be treated like violent criminals and subject to normal pre-trial detention. But many of the cases we are hearing about are outrageous.
Except for the fact this committee is a Kkangaroo court worthy of a third-world dictatorship. What is and was out of control were not a bunch of renegade citizens but an entire United States government in league with the World Economic Forum. the Bilderberg Group and the Biden Crime family. (To mention a few.)
100% on all accounts. It's the Salem Witch Trials all over again. It may have been interesting with the balance of McCarthy's nominations to the committee, but without that it is a step below Kabuki Theater. I would rather watch zero gravity sumo wrestling.
To: Naomi, Evil Incarnate, NCmom, R. Bosshardt, etc,
For all who think this is just a "show trial", have you listened to the testimony? Based on the various postings I think that you don't like what you hear.
You want to get to the truth?
Call your elected representatives and demand a special prosecutor (It happened during the Clinton Administration - investigation of Vince Foster's death, Whitewater, and for blowjobs in the Oval Office). This special prosecutor has the power to subpoena and not simply "invite" testimony.
I want to hear directly, under oath, from Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump, the Secret Service, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Michael Flynn (who took the Fifth), and yes Donald Trump. The list could go on. Let there be cross-examination.
I want to know under threat of perjury:
Did John Eastman speak with White House Counsel regarding a Presidential Pardon. Yes or No?
Did Mark Meadows ask for a Presidential Pardon? Yes or No.
Did Donald Trump, while riding in the Beast, attempt to crab the steering wheel and lunge towards one of his Secret Service detail? Yes or No.
Did Donald Trump accrue $250 million dollars in donations for a fund that never existed? Yes or No.
Did the Capital Police refuse the presence of the National Guard and who is responsible? Yes or No. The Constitution of the United States is very clear on the role of the Executive Branch in calling upon State Militias in a time of crisis.
This is a very messy situation and given the polarization in this country very difficult to manage; however, there are processes to do this. You may think the current proceedings are a kangaroo court; however, did any members of the GOP agree to be represented apart from Liz Cheney?
A kangaroo court is one political side running the show. The January 6 Committee is a political ploy by the “Democrats” and more particularly a political ploy to distract from the evil being perpetrated by the Biden Crime Family and associates. The American people understand this.
Kevin McCarthy abrogated any adult responsibility to bring "balance" to these proceedings. Rather like a petulant child he refused to play know full well that "the base" would see his behavior as principled as opposed to cynical.
When Adam Schiff lies about Trump for years and then sits on a Trump Investigation Committee, I would not waste a single moment giving him a platform to lie to me.
They don't simply lack credibility, they're proven Disinformers and conspiracy theorists with a strong hate motive.
Also, even parts of this article have been debunked by the end of the day. I can't trust anything that comes from their testimony and neither should you.
The common sense expression of this is, "do not let the wolves guard the sheep's pen"
And be exceedingly careful about which wolves we feed. I have no problem with wolves per se especially as in evolutionary terms they gave us our dogs. But feeding the wrong wolves which we certainly havw with the current and certain past Democratic administration. These kleptocrats are in league with the WEF, Bilderberg, Ukrainian Nazi’s and worse. I used to be a liberal from a long line of those who voted Democrat. We’re not talking about our Grandparents Democrats here. These self-described Democrats are Nazis. All in all the United States and much of the world are in epic danger.
You’re right Rick. I may not like what I hear if I heard everything.
I noticed, in your list of people you’d like to hear from, Nancy Pelosi wasn’t on it. I’d like to know what she knew before the events of January 6. And, what decisions did she made. Or not.
The way the whole thing is structured, it’s a show trial. I don’t have to watch it. And I don’t have to do all the things that you think I should do to get justice. The people will speak this November, and I’m sure the Democrats are hoping this is going to get their ox out of the ditch. But they’re gonna be in for a Yuge disappointment.
Nancy Pelosi - bring it on. I alluded to this by bringing up the Capital Police. I have absolutely no issue subpoenaing Nancy or any other of our "so-called leaders".
I am fully confident that the votes will send a very disturbing message to the so-called Democratic Elite: We are tired of your bullshit. That and, it is time to give the decrepit Clinton faction the boot. This does not mean that the same message should not be sent to the likes of Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell and many of the GOP. I also does not mean that AOC, Rashida Talib and other "rising stars" are the future. They can be no less fatuous.
Rittenhouse, Duke Lacrosse, Covington and many more cases appeared to be lock down decisions, until the other side got an opportunity in court. Without cross and testimony from the other side, this is merely a DNC infomercial for the 2022 mid terms. Yesterday's 'Bombshell' has already been discredited. What terrifies me is the precedent Nancy's set by allowing this to happen, which could be a far worse precedent than Harry killing the filibuster.
And, these same representatives on this committee held on to Russiagate, and perhaps still do, is further evidence to what's going on.
I don't mind Bari including articles like this as we should see both sides. That's why my aggregator of choice is Realclearpolitics.
I agree. If a proceeding is fundamentally flawed, it has no probative value. As I noted below in my response to another post, regarding the fundamental importance of cross-examination: “More than a century ago, John Henry Wigmore, the renowned American lawyer, legal scholar, and author of a 10-volume treatise on evidence (which Britannica says ‘is generally regarded as one of the world’s great books on law’), wrote that cross-examination is ‘the greatest legal engine ever invented’ for uncovering the truth. The lack of cross-examination at these one-sided, non-adversarial hearings is a fundamental defect that infects and undermines the entirety of these proceedings, and indicates that the goal of the hearings is to do something other than uncover the truth.”
It's very simple: release the video, all the video, now. Release the democrats’ phone records. Let the people decide. We don't need the corrupt priesthood of ideologues in congress telling us what happened. The experts are on the outside - right here. Release the video and all phone records. Let's get it on. This charade reminds me of the opening of "The Outer Limits" TV show although not as well written or produced. I fully expect to hear a version of this opening.
"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits."
Except the “other side” is either refusing to cooperate or have pleaded the Fifth. We will see whether the mystery Secret Service agents or anyone else present themselves to testify under oath. They don’t need a subpoena.
They cooperated until Nancy came up with some just new precedent (ala RvW) to reject McCarthy's selected members. You may buy the 'they were conspirator' logic, but that was just a joke.
Don't forget what the Dems did during the Kavanaugh hearing . . . They were allowed to say whatever they wanted and to make false accusations they wished.
Ugly, but the process played out and we're the better for it (though there were many innocent individuals who are not).
We are not allowed to have a fair, if ugly process here.
The proressives value results over process. I value process over results even if my preferred result is rejected.
1) You seem to be awfully motivated to present a narrative of "mystery" or "anonymous" agents. Why is that?
2) "If you are right, the committee will refuse to hear them."
What are you talking about?
3) If the committee knew the substance of the testimony why would they not arrange beforehand for those agents to testify? If they fail to invite them now what conclusion would you draw?
I'll be interested to see how you respond to the multitude of inquiries that I hope the Republicans launch when they take the house in the 2022 elections. There is so much more fodder there than in Trump-world.
I do not want to see tit for tat investigations. I want a full-fledged investigation of election integrity in general including ballot "harvesting" and the veracity of such ballots, and a revisiting of the propriety of corporate donations and influence. Voting is a human endeavor. There may be other things that need inquiry but I would like them to get back to the business of serving the interests' of the people.
The Democrats have become the party of extreme bullying. Just look at what the DoJ has done repeatedly since Biden took over: gone after political opposition. Not crime - political opposition. This cannot be allowed to stand.
Bullies don't stop bullying until they are met with equal resistance. "Tit for tat" investigations will, hopefully, allow Congress to get back to serving the interests of the people. Without this "retaliation", the Dems will just bide their time and restart their inquisitions, with renewed intensity, as soon as they can.
I agree that the Democrats use bully tactics. I have said before that they will use any means to obtain their end goal. I think that is unscrupulous. I still think it would be wrong to "retaliate" by doing the same thing. We would be better served to do investigations necessary to assure election integrity for example. Investigations to pass valid, Constitutional, laws instead of regulation by unelected bureaucrats. Investigations of the FBI and DOJ to determine their role in political matters. Investigations as to "social" "media" role in society and whether or not they are in fact publishers and should be subject to the same laws as traditional publishers. Investigation of the current situation 9n the Southern border resulting in immigration reform. Investigation of the weaponization of federal agencies- Treasury, DOJ, EPA, etc. Investigation of the Federal Reserve and its role in the creation of untenable fiscal policy. I think if a valid effort is made to actually do the people's business instead of trying to maintain the individual legislator's position or secure his or her party's power into perpetuity then many of the ills we have witnessed of late will be resolved.
That would depend on the nature of the inquiry. If it’s relevant to Congress’ legislative authority, sure. If the inquiry is of a kind to the multiple Benghazi hearings that went nowhere, then I might see that as a waste of resources.
I would venture that Benghazi should have gone somewhere in the sense that at the very least somebody should have lost their job for the rank incompetence that the hearings uncovered. However even if that outcome was unobtainable at least the hearings provided a horrific view into the kind of governmental inertia and miscommunication that results in tragedy.
That is not true. McCarthy chose Banks and Jordan and the committee refused them. The Democrats run the House of Representatives currently. What McCarthy should have done was pull Cheney and Kinzinger off the committee because these two "Republicans" give the Democrats cover. Thank God Kinzinger will be out and Cheney will be defeated in November.
"What terrifies me is the precedent Nancy's set by allowing this to happen, which could be a far worse precedent than Harry killing the filibuster."
Amen, bro. THAT is the danger.
My fear is that's exactly what will happen. The right is just as capable as the left of going all totalitarian.
And lest the progressives try to defend Speaker Pelosi's decision, keep in mind that the Dems were strongly represented during the Kavanaugh hearings.
We heard every nasty, vulger accusation they could come up with to scuttle his confirmation. We watched as organized progressives disturpted the hearings when a bunch of them dressed as women from The Handmaid's Tail entered the chamber. Were heard false accusations against innocent peolple. We heard from the now jailed Michael Avnatti casting slurs for a week all over the airwaves and the hearings were delayed for days and days. And then there were the 2 -3 demonstrators who yelled at a republican senator up close and personal in an elevator . . .
As dirty and cruel as their efforts were, the progressives were given their say. As ugly as it was, the process worked.
Speaker Pelosi has created a precedent that minimizes process in favor of a preferred outcome.
Seriously, a protest gone bad? Any reasonable look at this can see that Trump instigated the march and knew there would be violence. And he did nothing to stop it. He should be held accountable.
Some riot. Let's compare riots and instigation, shall we? We have many excellent examples from this past week on instigation. Shall we review what Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman AOC said? The White House refused to turn down the heat and encouraged it several times. There were frightening demonstrations in many cities this past week. The DOJ has refused to follow the law and protect the Supreme Court justices.
There are thousands of hours (14,000) of video of the Jan 6 Capital events. There are some that show provocateurs who have been identified as Antifa and FBI collaborators. (Ray Epps, anyone)?
Those who got into the Capital were respectful for the most part. There were no paintings defaced, no statues pulled down, no graffiti. Some windows were broken and one woman was murdered by Lt. Michael Byrd, who has yet to be charged. There is a video of his arm and hand with gun pointing it at Mrs. Babbitt and firing. She was the only one killed that day although there seems to be a new narrative building about 5 deaths that is factually untrue. Then again, to the Left, it is all about narrative.
While Babbitt’s death is regrettable, what do you imagine she would have done had she made it through the broken glass and into the hallway that provided direct access to the hallway down which congresspersons were running? We cannot know for certain, but my guess is that she was not going to sightsee on her own. More likely she would have unlocked the door and the mob would have come streaming through. Who knows what would then have happened.
But that is one of the reasons that the shooting was deemed justified, and that’s a correct conclusion in my view.
Someone breaking into Congress, the White House, or the Supreme Court followed by a large crowd is going to be shot. How does the guard on the other side of the door know that she was unarmed? The police and security detail that day showed FAR more restraint than they should have.
Was she reaching for a weapon? Did he have any indication that she was threatening bodily harm/death?
Try shooting an unarmed person as a civilian and see what happens. McCloskey’s were prosecuted, fined and had to surrender their weapons. And they never fired a shot. Or killed anyone.
No, it was deemed justified as a way of promoting a lie. Imagine a white male officer shooting a black female, point blank, with no warning. The whole fucking world would have exploded, but in this case, 'crickets'.
So much wrong here, but let's just start and end with the likelihood that your response, and certainly that of the MSM would have been quite different had the shooter been white, and Babbitt black.
And one more thought....the black activist shooter (he was and is) broke a very fundamental rule of shooting in that he fired at Babbitt with policemen in direct line of fire behind her. They should have been pissed off as hell and that alone should have cost this a$$hole his job.
She was shot to death by the same Lieutenant that left a loaded Glock-22, which has no safety, unattended in the bathroom and correctly bragged that nothing would happen to him. I'm not sure if it was his rank or that he is black lead him to that conclusion. Regardless, he's hardly one of the Capital Police's finest
"Regrettable". Weird that you have the prescience to look into Ms. Babbit's heart and motivations and determine outcomes that no one else could assess. Your take on this is incorrect in my view.
Whatever any of us, or the man who shot her, "imagine" she did not deserve to die. I find the "imagining" exceedingly troublesome. Is that what we have been reduced to?
I understand your point of view on the shooting, I hope that you give police officers who are facing armed individuals outside of the capitol the same latitude as the capitol police officer
Wow! Too easy to shift the focus to the left and ignore the responsibility of bad Republicans. Suggesting that this is comparable to other frightening demonstrations is just not reality.
Yes, a college frat party gone wrong on Jan 6 is nothing like the hundreds of murderous 'mostly peaceful' demonstrations of 2020. Read Nancy Rommelman's accounts of the Portland antifa 'demonstrations' of 2020 and see what you think. Those were closer to local insurrections than buffalo Q-anon guy sitting in Pelosi's chair.
How many people died in the BLM riots? How many billions of dollars in damage from the looting and destruction? There's no comparison in terms of sheer destructiveness between the January 6 riot and the series of riots from the summer previous. And yet there are no Congressional investigations for the far more serious riots in flyover country.
Maybe so, but they were. We have the footage. Let's compare it to the "mostly peaceful" protests in Seattle, Portland, D. C., NY, Milwaukee, Kenosha, and so many other blue state enclaves.
With respect, I read the transcript of Trump's speech that supposedly "fueled" the "insurrection". I did not get that from anything he said publicly. I would be happy to see a quote rebutting this. Again, not a Trump fan, but looking for the elusive truth behind all of this. In my opinion, Pence was a weasel who turned on his president at the end, probably in hopes of salvaging his future political career, once he saw which way the wind was blowing. Again, I would be happy to see proof that I am wrong.
I believe Pence could have held up certifying the election in view of the innumerable challenges. Remember, this was before all of the "investigations" which followed later. There was no hesitation in holding up the certification of the election of Bush vs Gore when the "hanging chad" controversy arose. The problem here was that the country now is so hyperpartisan and choked with unhinged Trump rage that doing this would have set off who-knows-what "mostly peaceful protests" by the left. Doing this would have been a huge political risk for Pence and required a level of moral courage that he clearly did not possess. Maybe he was just being a realist. Either way, he caved.
If you’re a federalist, then you should agree that any certification issue is left to the states, not one of which (even those controlled by Republicans) saw any need to withdraw their previous certification.
As to Pence, not even Eastman believed his “theory” would get even one vote in the Supreme Court. So there is only one conclusion to be drawn: Pence simply did not have the authority to do what Trump demanded.
It is the job of the VP to certify the votes from the states. The founders were careful not to involve pomp or circumstance into the process and the VP's certification is the last step to ensure legitimacy. I am not here to question Pence's decision, but it is not and was never meant to be a pencil whip.
All ofTrumps court challenges failed. Pence did his job correctly. Trump’s big lie continues to be accepted by those who are willfully blind Republicans.
I don't like Pence (not a fan of the religious right) and not a fan of Trump (an a hole), but Pence was not a weasel for refusing to fuel the fantasies of Trump. Maybe there were electoral issues, maybe there weren't, but Pence wasn't a weasel for failing to follow Trump.
I don't think a legitimate skepticism of the election results, given all the reported irregularities from multiple sources would have been out of order. It was not a matter of following Trump but of thinking critically and following through. Critical thinking is in short supply these days. I do think it was a weasely thing to do and I always liked Pence because I thought he was a good counterpoint to Trump. No longer.
Even far left and seriously honest Glenn Greenwald has characterized the event as at most a riot, not an insurrection. And in the context of what we saw all summer of 2020, this was “mostly peaceful”.
Trump’s words, which were cut from the soundbite, called for a peaceful march on the Capitol.
So amazing that you apparently have no factual rebuttal. If you're not going to contribute to the conversation in a productive fashion maybe you should just do the earth a favor and save the bandwidth.
Instigated?... Please shut up. People are responsible for their own actions, even if they choose to subscribe to group think. The only persons actions that Trump is responsible for are his own. He was not at the head of the pack or egging them on with a megaphone, he was miles away and out of contact with this mob. This type of mental approach is the perfect explanation for how the voting mentality of the Left operates, the truth is what the greatest number of people can convince themselves of... really sad.
With Antifa and FBI connected insurgents planted in the crowd to try to get people provoked it does strongly suggest pre-planning and that they wanted it. Tucker keeps bringing up the guy who planted 2 pipe bombs who was never pursued. Fortunately they didn't detonate but he is caught on camera and could have been identified.
I like you am a conservative, not a Republican. I despise both parties but I vote Republican because I can't bring myself to vote Socialist. I agree with your evaluation of Trump. He is a lying, megalomaniacal, bully.
The left ignores that Hillary tried to subvert the democratic process by spreading the lie that Trump colluded with the Russian. The left and the press jumped on this lie like flies on cow flop.
Nothing in this article was new information, or even remotely approaches validating a year and a half of openly deceitful and partisan "investigations" while the country's real problems get dramatically worse.
And please let's not pretend there was ever an intent to do a fair investigation, led by California Democrats who are on public record acknowledging that they lied to us about Trump for years and don't regret it. Now the same people lead the "truth Committee".
It seems many of those deriding the hearings admit to not watching them and are obviously getting their spin from Trump-supporting media. These hearings are unlike any of the hearings you seem to be comparing them to. There is little showboating. Committee members do not get to make those long-winded partisan statements before the witness is questioned. Yes, Pence was always a weasel until it came down to the choice between continuing to bow and scrape to the toddler-in-chief and doing the right thing. There never have been any credible allegations of election fraud, no matter how many times Trump supporters try to say there were. It astounds me that anyone who has even paid the slightest attention to the actual hearings can still refuse to see what is patently obvious.
You are entitled to your opinion. This is what I love about Common Sense; that such things can be discussed with civility. I think the movie, 2000 Mules, was a game-changer, at least for me. It presented an entirely novel way to subvert an election in a way that could have skewed the results meaningfully and would not have been recognized unless someone thought to look in this direction. This possibility was never alluded to in any of the previous investigations and I believe it clearly needs to be looked into very closely. Will it? I doubt it. The left has made us so fatigued with Trump hysteria ( and Trump himself is his own worst enemy) that I doubt the film will gain any investigative traction, especially since our institutions- DOJ, FBI, etc- have been weaponized as political foils for the left for the most part. I hate to say this but I believe it to be true, same as the media, academic institutions, and my field of medicine.
Ok, then let's talk about 100% voter turnout in areas where that isn't possible.
Let's talk about 400 million leftist billionaire Zuckerbucks being send to Democrat counties in swing states. Open election meddling from private sector billionaires.
Let's talk about the FBI sitting on criminal evidence of the Biden family, doing nothing, and publicly lying about its credibility.
Let's talk about a once-objective news media shamelessly campaigning for one party.
Let's talk about unequal treatment under the law, where leftist protesters got exceptions from lockdown rules so they could march for Democrats while right wing demonstrations we're shut down over the virus.
Let's talk about the videos of Democrat vote counters pulling out hidden bags as soon as Republicans are out of the room. Or the videos of drug dealers with stacks of ballots bragging about their profitability being better than the drugs.
There's lots more, ZL. How much more does there have to be for you to even consider a slightly less bigoted perspective?
This comment is long on rhetoric but completely lacking in factual analysis. If you think the documentary can be debunked let's see your arguments. Otherwise maybe if you are not going to contribute in a productive manner maybe you should do the earth a favor and save the bandwidth.
There are plenty of resources via google which can point you to the fallacies/lies/unproven conspiracy theories in 2000 Mules. Or you can take the word (under oath) of Bill Barr. Perhaps you should defend it with factual analysis instead of wasting bandwith deriding others as unproductive.
The question of a stolen election is really two questions. Barr opined on the first, and he may well be correct that there was no clear evidence thst the ck7 ting of the ballots didn’t show large scale fraud.
BUT there is the second question about the election being stolen that has great merit.
The ballots may have been counted mostly correctly, but there is substantial evidence to indicate that enough ballots were in the pool that counted that either shouldn’t have been there or were tempered with.
Start with the mid election changes to the absentee ballot rules in some swing states by Democratsmin charge. Spoiled ballots are to be discarded. Instead, they changed the rules to count them or in Democrat precincts, they called voters back to fix them. In one state, they did that even though state law said that absentee ballots can’t be opened until the pols closed.
In another state, ballot harvesting was allowed even though it’s against the law. In cases where nursing home votes were collected and the law required the collection process be supervised by an election official, the supervision was ignored.
Ballots were collected in drop boxes in places that were intentionally lacking in security. Security cameras these days cost less than $100.
There is actually video of people dropping off handfuls of ballots when the law doesn’t allow that.
Then there is the Zuckerbucks and the allowance of Democrat officials to allow private people to materially take over the election process.
So yes, the election WAS stolen.
Before FDR’s first term, the president took office in March. Thst may have provided courts and investigators a better opportunity to get to the truth.
You lost me at "plenty of resources via google which can point you to the fallacies/lies/unproven conspiracy theories in 2000 mules."
Are you aware that google is part of the LEFT and promotes articles that are paid for written pieces backed by deep state actors? Have you not heard of green washing or astroturfing? Politifact, Snopes, all those outlets get paid to write counter articles to debunk and confuse. Someone searches and finds something that looks credible and says, "oh, I guess, I was imaging that, or so so was wrong, this very credible source says otherwise". If you follow the rabbit hole of the sources you read you will realize most, if not all, are compromised by big money and deep state influence to debunk and confuse.
So deciding that something is or isn't true based on a google search is counterproductive. Google is always going to be lockstep with the mainstream narrative. It's the non mainstream and the censored voices you need to listen to if you want truth. But most don't want truth they want peace and that is fine too.
I fully expect him to use the Poopy Pants come back next. But remember "Sticks and Stones...." or "I'm rubber,. "You're glue...." But maybe his Mom called him in for lunch.
Combine 2000 Mules with Rigged (by Mollie Hemingway) and you have a pretty damn compelling picture of an election that, I believe in 20 years, will be seen to have been as fraudulent as any elections in third world countries.
Take Biden at his word: the best voter fraud organization in history.
And I still have to ask the question no one else seems to be asking: If the left claims the 2020 elections were the most secure and transparent in history, why are they pushing so hard for federalization of elections?
A picture is not evidence and Trump’s own head of cybersecurity - not the left - was the one who declared that 2020 was the most secure election in history.
As to the federal takeover of elections, I assume you are referring to the House bill that went nowhere trying to establish minimum consistent standards for federal elections. I wouldn’t be so quick to characterize the matter as unconstitutional as it would depend on many things, including the Legislative branch’s power in the Constitution - same issue with the Voting Rights Act which has passed constitutional muster.
As a personal matter, I’d prefer the Democrats to take the time to organize in the states, get people who are qualified to vote registered and then make their case state by state. It’s just that I may be waiting a long time before that happens. As Will Rogers said, “I am not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat.” Still true.
Excellent question. The answer, to me, is obvious: consolidate control and continue on the path to the radical transformation of our constitutional republic into an authoritarian regime controlled by progressive elites.
Saw this, and others. I remain convinced there is something very real there in their investigation and it deserves closer scrutiny. Perhaps just bringing in a few "mules" in interviewing them......
I think the Georgia attorney general is trying to get the identity of their whistleblower so he can be interrogated. I'm hoping that happens to get us some clarification.
Yes. Trump lost me with his extraordinary Sore Loser behavior (nature). BUT the Jan 6 theatre is no more legitimate than their impeachments, most stunningly their 2nd one where ‘there isn’t any time to let there be any defense’. MY biggest reason for that conclusion is simple: the defendant is not being allowed any representation or cross-examination of the evidence being put forward. Try that in any courtroom.
His crazy refusal to admit that Biden either won legitimately or to hand over power saying “I can’t prove it, but we’ll figure it out and I’ll be back” has been an embarrassing stain on his supporters and himself. I do thank goodness that Pence stuck to his principles.
Don’t mistake this as even the slightest agreement with the Democrats behavior which is nearly as disgusting.
I get why Trump would be so incredibly frustrated by being knifed at every turn, every day throughout his term. It’s just that doesn’t justify the refusal to exit with grace and maturity.
But he did hand over power. Maybe it wasn’t as graceful or dignified as say the Clinton’s stealing the furniture, but he did leave, he didn’t have to pried from the door frames and Joey depends got installed.
Couldn’t agree more with these sentiments, and don’t know how this sloppy, biased article was up to par for Common Sense. Yesterday was nothing but hearsay that has already been debunked by those who were in the Beast. And why didn’t Pelosi accept the support of the National Guard? Why?
Who else in the beast has actually debunked it? There has been mention the USSS agents have said it wasn’t true, but I’ve yet to hear them say that themselves. Now if a USSS agent disputes this under oath, then you have my attention.
How can we get your attention if the J6 committee won't call those witnesses? How about the crack pot journalists that easily debunked the Russia gate hoax, the fine people on both sides nonsense, the drinking bleach BS, the Hunter Biden laptop Russia disinformation smoke screen, etc. etc. etc.? Should we depend on them to get your attention? I think too many people on this thread are missing the point of the J6 committee. It was merely a professionally produced attempt at applying the art of persuasion. Don't miss this point: Batya was swayed. Maybe that's why BW shared the article for all we know.
Some people would demand that it be said under oath, I guess...but those are the same people that may be inclined to dismiss their sworn statements as lies. You can't change a mind that can't be changed. The J6 show was just too persuasive for Batya (et al). They just can't see that they were lied to. The resultant cognitive dissonance is to be the expected.
‘They’ accuse ‘us’ of bias but that’s a human trait that none of us is immune to. I’ve read studies finding that conservatives are better at seeing their own blind spots than are those on the left. I think that’s because so many leftist beliefs are magical thinking to begin with.
Were these statements debunking Ms. Cassidy done under oath before the committee? Why do so many of the principles involved take the 5th or just ignore subpoenas? Why did both Meadows and Giuliana ask Trump for pre-emptive pardons?
It is my opinion that Garland and the DOJ are quietly and painstakingly moving forward with their own investigations and will work their way up from bottom to top. He knows that given the political climate any charges he brings must be airtight.
Why exactly then are politicians running a parallel investigation while the cops continue theirs? Maybe, just maybe, it would behoove everyone to just wait until the DOJ finishes their investigation and only then launch committee hearings? Especially if the political climate is making the jobs of the actual prosecutors harder?
What a brilliant reply Rick thank you for this and I might add if President Trump does run in 2024 I will definitely be voting for him I vote policy not personality the same can be said of Bill Clinton although he was a morally bankrupt man that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good President all though I never ever vote me him or his wife!
I’m not a Biden fan, but I do think his morals are a lot better than Trump. I’m a centre right conservative and Biden has been centre left, but has been dragged more left by the crazies in his party. I want a Republican President like a Regan or George Bush senior.
It appears that Biden's family and Biden himself were able to reap millions of dollars in salary and benefits from Ukrainian and Chinese businesses based solely on Biden's office of vice president.
So you think a plagiarist who lies every time he opens his mouth; who falsely claimed that his wife and daughter were killed, and his sons injured, by a drunk driver, when it was his wife who was at fault; who was known as Senator MBNA for being in bed with the Delaware banking establishment until Obama picked him for VP; who voted for the crime bill long before he was ever against it; who voted against abortion long before he was for it is morally better than a blowhard but centrist-policy president—and these are only the things we know for sure (I for one totally believe he stuck his finger into Tara Reader’s bum and, when she stopped him from going further, groused “Come on man; I heard you liked me”)—is simply mystifying to me.
A meme on my Facebook page yesterday - "A vote is not a Valentine. You aren't confessing your love for the candidate. It's a chess move for the world you want to live in."
Agreed. Part of me thinks the fact I’m over Trump means they already won. That’s what they wanted from all these produced scandals. They’ve taken his bombastic, annoying behavior and tried to make it criminal which it isn’t. I’m just over it all.
I think they are grasping at straws because their entire party's focus has been lying about Trump for five years. When Biden won, I wondered how they would managed to still continue making everything about Trump, because they have no other platform and are losing their base without a constant source of radicalism and outrage.
This, this is how they continued to make it about Trump. For 18 months and ongoing, while our nation is in a state of chaos and suffering almost entirely driven by bad policy.
I am over all of the TDS. Five years of lies and hate-mongering about Trump, and they still won't stop.
Couldn't agree more. You said, "I hope Trump does not run again. He had his day and I cannot stand the thought of another four years of unhinged anti-Trump rage. Biden is the worst president in my lifetime." and I echo that statement.
The ludicrous ideas (Trump grabbed the wheel from 3 rows back. Really?) coming out of the hearings yesterday are just that, ludicrous.
Last week it was the overwhelming sentiment of the American people that we have bigger issues within our country to deal with right now; like an administration that doesn't seem to give a shit about the people and their struggles. Inflation, crime, the marginalization of the vaccine injured, to name a few. No matter where you stand on the "Pandemic" and how it was handled, what is to come as it relates to how it was handled is going to go down in history as one of the worsts times in human history. The governments of the world behaved badly and people are suffering. We were abused by our governments and it continues.
I feel like the Jan 6th hearings are just another distraction meant to divert attention away from the suffering of humanity as it relates to the "Pandemic" and the policies and actions of our leaders who abused and harmed people for profit.
Just last week Dr. Birx testified in front of the Senate and when asked if when the government told people that they wouldn't get Covid if they were vaccinated, were they guessing or were they lying? Dr. Birx said "I don't know". When asked if when the government told the people that the vaccinated couldn't transmit it? Dr. Birx said, "I think it was hope [sic] that the vaccines would work in that way.
The lies about Covid and the experimental gene therapy are piling up and have been for sometime. The American people are just so happy to be moving past this time, that they, in true fashion, have selective and short-term memories. This is ugly and it's not going away no matter what silly distraction our government clowns attempt. Still they attempt. We can't trust our leaders, our federal institutions, our healthcare systems, and its doctors. We have been lied to, gas-lit, abused, and poisoned, both physically and mentally.
Never before was it more obvious than now that our Commander and Chief isn't exactly in charge. What a sham we find ourselves here in America. To think these two; Biden/Harris are the best America has to offer? To anyone paying attention and a bit skeptical, we are being intentionally destroyed from within. Jan 6th was nothing more than an orchestrated false flag event perpetrated on the American people to further rob us of our RIGHTS. Like 9/11 and The Patriot Act. Deeper and deeper we go.
Before we can ever really heal and unite we are going to have to address the past two years and the broken system and realize that this one-sided North Korea Style Propaganda show the LEFT is putting forth is just more of the same SHOW they ALL feed us to keep us from the real problems that plaque our society. Do they (elected leaders) do any real work? Why do we continue to play in their charade?
Term limits and a betrayal of public trust amendments. Betrayal of public trust: If an elected official lies it would be treated as perjury. If they profit from their office like so many have, off to prison with them. This insider trading is practiced by both parties. Joe Bide has two houses, one a beach house. These houses are worth about 6 million dollars. Nancy Pelosi is worth, depending on you listen to, between 100 and 500 million. neither Nancy nor Joe made enough money as members of congress to have that much money.
If sent to prison, they don't go to club fed. They go to maximum security prisons. Where they serve a minimum of five years. In no time they will be taking long warm showers with large muscled up people with lots of tattoos and when released, they get no retirement or any other government benefits. If this unfairly impacts their families, so be it. They should have thought of that when they were breaking the law.
I'm tired of the self-serving a**holes. They disgust me.
What can I say? I agree with everything you said. My view of the management of the pandemic can only be expressed in words not fit to use in public. I have never been more ashamed of my profession.
If I’m going by the people who have replied to this article I have to say the Democrats are in serious trouble just going into the midterms and yes I agree with everything written by you here that the behavior of this current administration has to be the worst in American history and yes it’s the first time ever in human history that governments have locked down a healthy population. However, the American people are fighting back we are all just sick and tired of all the bullshit!!
you basically said you hope Trump does not run again because you don’t want to go through four more years of anti-Trump rage. Think about that! The progressives, in their lawlessness and continuing riots, and continuing media attacks, and continuing baseless investigations, have succeeded in convincing folks like you that a competent president should not run again because progressives will continue to riot against his competence, as they don’t care for his policies. What you don’t realize is that should another Republican run who continues Trump’s policies, no matter his personality, we will have more rage for another four years regardless.
The country is in exceedingly difficult financial trouble. Epoch Times reports it’s very likely that the Fed, in September, will be forced to begin printing more money to prevent United States default on its debt. since they raised interest rates it’s more expensive to pay off
our debt.
We need a president who understands finances and money and we need one very soon.Stop being afraid of progressive rage because it’s unpleasant;there are FAR more unpleasant things that could be catastrophic for this country and very likely will under the wrong leadership. We simply cannot afford another mistake.
I don’t see Trump anxious to play that role, and I believe that should much of the electorate agree with Bosshart above, the progressives will have learned a key lesson: all they have to do is attack attack attack and the public, seeking calm and civility On the part of the opposition party, will flee from any competent president with whose policies the progressives disagree.
The fault lies with the progressives and the way in which they choose to behave when they disagree with the policies of an incoming president. The last thing the voting public needs to do is encourage such behavior as it will only get even worse
I think Melania and Barron are going to have a say at another go at this and I think that will be a shrill hell no. I also think Ivanka and Jared will move on. That'll leave Don Jr and maybe his GF Kimberly Guilfoyle. He NEEDS his family and if he doesn't have them, he won't be running.
You make an excellent point. My lifelong, best friend, Dave, one of the most intellingent, well-read, reasonable people I know told me the same thing when I said I hope Trump won't run. If we let the unhinged screeches and tantrums of the left make us cancel ourselves or do something other than what we feel we ought to do, they have won.
Don’t you find it at least worth some of your reflecting on the fact that hearing’s “the progressive narrative” is based almost entirely on the testimony of Republicans, some of whom had access to both Trump and the facts about the election?
The hearings may lack cross-examination by the GOP (and no particularly credible lines of cross have been suggested), but don’t pretend that the testimony is all lefties and anti-Trumpers.
Although I dislike pithy acronyms, I call your attention to the term RINO. As I said, I freely admit that I have not listened to or viewed the hearings for the reasons I mentioned. Nothing I have seen or heard modifies my opinion of such hearings and this one in particular. The consequences are so dire of accusing a president of insurrection that the hearings should be transparently and clearly non-partisan and all rules of evidence should be followed. They are not.
More than a century ago, John Henry Wigmore, the renowned American lawyer, legal scholar, and author of a 10-volume treatise on evidence (which Britannica says “is generally regarded as one of the world’s great books on law”), wrote that cross-examination is “the greatest legal engine ever invented” for uncovering the truth. The lack of cross-examination at these one-sided, non-adversarial hearings is a fundamental defect that infects and undermines the entirety of these proceedings, and indicates that the goal of the hearings is to do something other than uncover the truth.
I agree with your skepticism and hope for a more balanced evaluation of the events on 1/6. I’m often disgusted by Trumps behavior but support many of his actions. The evidence of election fraud may not be available but the circumstantial evidence points to a grave concern for the legitimacy of the process including who performs the counting.
I find it dangerous to highlight the riotous behavior of a small portion of a very large crowd while obscuring video and refusing to identify how many gov actors were part of the crowd. Ray Epps for instance. This refusal to be transparent makes the hearings a farce.
During the hearings, they have been playing portions of Bill Barr’s deposition. He makes it very clear they found no evidence of significant voting fraud, and he thought the 2000 Mules documentary was a joke. They have also played videos of many other depositions from Trump admin employees, and Republican election officials from GA and AZ who also testified there was no evidence found of significant voting fraud. They explain what was actually discovered when several of the major claims were thoroughly investigated. I can understand speculation if the witnesses were closely associated with Democrats, but overwhelmingly the testimony, both in depositions and in person, had come from former Trump officials and other Republicans. If you want to dispute whether Trump is responsible in one way or another for the violence on Jan 6, I think you can make a reasonable argument. However, when dozens of Republicans who worked for Trump and wanted him to win say they could find no evidence of fraud, then I don’t know how you doubt that.
He was AG responsible for the the Department responsible for investigating the allegations, including those arising from issues discussed in 2000 mules. That gives his testimony pretty heavy weight. I can understand you don’t have the time or desire to watch the hearings, but if you like Barr, why not watch his depositions and read the portion of his book that covers investigating the allegations?
the issues arising out of 2000 mules did not surface until after Barr left office, so he could not have investigated - even ignoring that there was not nearly enough time.
There is this funny little thing called "life" that gets in the way of doing all the things I would like to do. My original commentary was a response to what I saw as a very slanted and poor article which I felt was not up to the standards of Common Sense. All of us are constrained by time and the difficulty in sifting throught the mass of reported to find what looks like objective truth.
Near the very end of Trump’s term, after Barr refused to back his claims the election was stolen because all of the accusations that were made had been investigated and no evidence was found there was fraud. That’s when he left. After serving longer than any of Trump’s other several AGs and acting AGs.
Somebody else quoted Alan Dershowitz's criticism of the movie, which is that while it does not produce definitive evidence of fraud it does conclusively demonstrate that mail in balloting is inherently a terrible way to run an election.
It would be unfortunate if that more important point was lost in all of the controversy.
to your point: if the 2020 elections were the most secure every, whey are Dems desperately trying to have the federal government take over the elections?
Answer: they know R's will learn to play the game and want to prevent any competition in the League of Cheaters.
A comical, Stalinesque show trial trots out a bunch of pearl clutching hysterical people who offer third hand hearsay and pop psychology garbage, all managed by the people who gave us a running, 4 year coup attempt and you offer up this pathetic garbage. Shame on you, Bari.
Trump is fading into the twilight on his own. The Democrats are destroying our nation as Americans suffer needlessly from their ineptitude and dogmatic refusal to recognize reality. We do not need to feed their lies and frenzy. Please remove this crap and get back to what you're best at - offering facts to be considered and debated by patriotic American adults.
Some subjects don’t interest me. I determined a long time ago that Trump’s behavior - between the election in November and the 1/6 attack on the Capital - disqualifies him for public office in the future.
I sat through Nancy Pelosi’s vendetta against Trump with two impeachment hearings, ripping up his State of the Union speech on national TV and three years of the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. I’m not going to watch another Nancy Pelosi farce. The women is sick with rage against this one man. She bleeds contempt for Trump. Somewhere along the way he pissed her off, because she embodies the phrase: hell hath no fury like a women scorned. The only consolation prize is that SCOTUS will continue to rule on issues that will get inside of her head and destabilize her further.
Trump, for all his bombastic speech, respects Federalism. It's why he offered, but didn't call out, the National Guard to the states that were experiencing riots. He could have called them out to protect, if nothing else, the Federal courthouses that were under siege.
Trump did not use his DOJ to go after his political enemies as we daily see now. In fact, the three letter agencies were against him and plotted to fabricate "facts" to destroy his presidency and have him impeached. Robert Muller anyone?
He didn't "offer" the National Guard; he threatened it. Big difference. Trump constantly tried to use his powers unilaterally. Trump couldn't even define Federalism if you asked him.
When Obama ran for President there were scores of chartered buses lined up on the local university campus to take all the students to vote for him. I have never seen anything like it. The enthusiasm was palpable.
Biden did very few public events. He mostly hid in his basement in Delaware. When he did have appearances in public there were those handful of white circles on the ground for attendees to stand or sit in. Heck, some of the time they couldn't find enough people to place in the circles and had to drag in the press or their staff to fill them. Contrast that to Trump's rallies where the least well attended had over 30,000 with huge overflow crowds to the horizon. People camped out 2-3 days before so they could get a spot in line.
Oh yeah I believe Biden got more black votes than Obama. Yeah, I believe that.
You're underestimating how many people didn't want to suffer another 4 years under Trump. Unfortunately in politics in America right now, it's more about voting against someone than voting for someone. Credit to Trump, he generated stronger turnout and (fortunately) a huge percentage of that turnout was people who were flatly disgusted with his presidency and wanted to see him gone. But saying "I don't believe more Blacks voted for Biden than Obama" with nothing to back it up is a weak argument. The truth is more Blacks voted against Trump than voted against either of Obama's opponents; that makes perfect sense - neither of those guys was an overt racist.
Well despite your fevered cries that Trump would never leave office voluntarily, that's precisely what he did. Churlishly, perhaps,, but he left.
So once again, you and your comrades we're full of it. Despite Trump's flaws, his presidency was a success - look at the chaos we have now - and if he was a "dictator" he was the most lax and inept dictator the world has ever known. The senile imbecile who replaced him has jailed far more political prisoners than Trump did. In fact, Trump didn't imprison or charge even one political opponent.
Oh, thanks. I have one. I remembered your note and watched the Wednesday episode last night. I was infuriated. Biden and Garland have turned our FBI into an American Stasi. Are there no agents with the character and honor to refuse these patently unconstitutional arrests and attempts at political intimidation? If the FBI wants to declare war on free Americans then they'll have to deal with the consequences.
Brilliantly put, and I would agree, except Stalin’s trials were not comical. The accused were tortured physically and emotionally into confession of guilt. Our society is gentle in comparison. We just have plenty of people who would sell their souls for future cushy employment or book contract and testify under oath whatever is expected from them. With their attorney pre-approval, of course. So, out of respect for victims of Stalin’s terror, let’s not compare his show trials with this circus.
Different time, different society. But they definitely show promise, I have to agree. I get skin bumps from watching video of Stone arrest. Or from reading how Feds seized Eastman’s phone in the street. The power is intoxicating and leads to impunity. If Democrats win again, everything may be possible. History repeats itself because nobody wants to learn from its lessons. The irony of it for me and my family - to run away from the Soviet Union only to make a full circle. Feels like deja vu.
So if it agrees with your preexisting narrative it's "facts to be considered and debated by PATRIOTIC American adults", but if you don't agree with it, it's not worth your time. Good way for you to learn and grow.
If this were an actual trial, with evidence and testimony provided by each side, I believe that most fair minded people would listen - and be willing to learn. But the hearings do not rise to that level and thus, many are not interested. They’ve made up their mind a long time ago.
To be fair, most Republicans took their ball and went home and refused to even participate. It's not fair for one side to refuse to be a part of an activity, then accuse it of being one-sided.
Ok, so both Republicans and Democrats act like babies. Now we are getting somewhere. Progress. Glad you can see where both sides make mistakes. That’s rare. Many that I’ve encountered on the other team would never admit that their team made a mistake.
If you think anything in which Adam Schiff plays a pivotal role is remotely fair and factual you simply can't be taken seriously. Not even by Fang Fang.
Truth is, from what I see, unless his health deteriorates, Trump is gaining speed. Maybe the world is waking up, witness Milei and Wilders and Abascal's rising popularity.
Just as I can think that abortion is simultaniously an evil act and that it should be legal....I can also hold other seemingly conflicting opinions.
1. Was Jan 6th an insurrection? No. It was a mob that was allowed to get out of control. Were there professional adjitators involved? Probably. Were there FBI agents in the crowd, some perhaps egging them on? Very likely. Did Trump fail to do all he could to rein it in? I think he could have done more but I do not think he intentionally set it in motion.
2. Do I believe Trump lost the election? Yes. Do I believe that there were games played in key states to assure that happened? Very likely and I think the odds were stacked against him by the media and social media and various localities. If all that changed, would he have won? Not likely but maybe.
Also....I take a lot of what comes out in these hearings with a big grain of salt.
1. They were clearly set up to be a political hit job. That there were no republicans on the that were not hand picked by Pelosi did it for me. That fact alone made the whole thing not worth paying attention to.
2. I would have had a lot more faith in the election had the democrats not fought so hard to avoid any investigations into irregularities. There WERE irregularities. Had the democrats and the media decided to do real investigations into them, regardless of where they lead, I would have more faith in the outcome. But instead, they just dismissed legitimate concerns out of hand and rushed ahead. Which then makes me suspicious of what they are hiding. What do they know or suspect that they are afraid of transparency?
3. I take the witnesses with a grain of salt too. Largely hand picked and coached by a committee and its staff that had an outcome in mind when they started. Its like hearing only the prosecution in a criminal case and knowing that the prosecution cherry picked the witnesses and told them what to say. I also suspect that some of these former staff members that are testifying against Trump have an agenda, that being to rehabilitate their social circles and job opportunities. So, again, I take that them with a big grain of salt.
Now, did I agree with Trump's policies? Yes I did. He proved right on a lot of things from NATO to China to dealing with COVID in a rational way. He got NAFTA fixed. He was right about the Europeans being dependent on Russia for their energy. He was right on the border. He got a lot right by running counter to the DC narrative. WHICH....is why he got elected in the first place.
DO I think he should be re-elected? No. He is too vindictive a personality to be allowed back in. Plus, he would be term limited the day he took the oath. Then, it would really incite violence and even deeper polarization. No. My pick would be DeSantis, Trump policies without Trump.
As to your #1, the persons McCarthy had selected seemed to have been involved in some of the events under investigation, either in brainstorming how to help Trump in pushing the “Stop the Steal” or communicating with the WH while hiding from those who invaded the halls of Congress. You can’t both be a potential witness and a judge.
As to your #2, much of the testimony is being provided by Republican insiders.
Charles, my point holds. Regardless of who McCarthy would have picked, there is NO opposing view, no challenge to the narrative being spun. There is not challenging of the evidence or the witnesses. It is simply a one sided story with an agenda. That simply makes it pointless. It has no credibility. Even IF McCarthy picked his own version of extremists with and agenda at least each side could challenge the others facts. Then WE could make our own determinations as to the veracity of each case.
AND......I take the testimony of republican insiders with a massive grain of salt as well. Who are these insiders? What is their agenda? Are they Never Trump types or perhaps are they attempting to rebuild their DC careers and social circles? Are any of them attempting to avoid indictment for something? WHO on that panel is asking those questions? Who is challenging the witnesses? ........Nobody.
Well, I haven’t heard anything specific to your hypothetical objections have been raised by Trump or his supporters - and it’s not as if they are under oath or reticent to comment.
Nothing prevented McCarthy from proposing persons uninvolved in the “Stop the Steal” strategizing or who communicated directly with the WH on 1/6. That was a deliberate choice. Deal with it.
My points are valid. Dismissing them without recognizing any element of their validity and without a counterargument is simply being stubborn.
If you have a different POV that is fine but make an argument for your position.
You COULD have argued that my points were valid BUT.......
You could challenge the relevancy of my position re: the "republican insiders". Maybe you have facts to support why they should be taken seriously. Now maybe I will not agree with your argument, but you are not even bothering to try and simply dismissing my concerns.
Precisely how does that shift the needle on anything?
"It has no credibility" - except for the willfully blind and ivy indoctrinated and thus utterly ignorant youth, which are sadly legion. Wrung Out Lemon - your post nailed it for me. Excellent.
Don’t think that would work think you need Trump with De Santis and then a De Santis/.... for 2028 he would have had enough time to keep Trump’s policies going forward
As much as I agree with Trump on a lot of policies, I never LIKED the man.
Then too, I think he would come into office less focused on getting things done than on attempting to prove that he got screwed and looking to retaliate. Not worth it.
We need calm and civility if we are ever going to get through these insane times. Trump instinctively is a grenade thrower. Now he is one with a big grudge.
DeSantis is bright and has a sense of humor. Substantively he is close to Trump but without the baggage and with a far more palatable style.
Trump served his purpose, that being to shake up the political system and alter the direction of the DC narrative. HE was the grenade that WE launched into DC. But now it is time to end the war with a negotiated settlement. Trump would simply want to perpetuate the uncivil war.
Yup. Again - I came to those same conclusions. My primary complaint policy wise was his refusal to work the Trans-Pacific Partnership. By trying to "go it alone" against China he lost a chance to build alignment and more actively resist China's desire for regional hegemony.
I would not trust Trump to watch my kids nor see him as a good influence on them. But his policies for the most part were dead on. My favorite article ever was the WSJ's "What if Trump were sane" which essentially said he could have been one of our best presidents if not for his narcissism and moral failings.
I'm less sympathetic to (some of) Trump's policies than you, and I always suspected it was risky to elect him even if I'd been more fully in agreement, because of the danger that he could do something unhinged (which he proved in the end after the 2020 election), and because his rhetoric was unnecessarily nasty and divisive, and a president's rhetoric matters.
However, I appreciate much of what you say here. It shows an ability to "keep two thoughts in one's mind at the same time," which is increasingly rare.
I was impressed with her testimony, but there may be a problem. In the western edition of the ABC news cast, there was breaking news that the Secret Service is demanding time to come before the committee to testify. Apparently, they will testify that Trump did not lunge at the agents in the car when they refused to take him to the capitol. Here is the link to the broadcast. The relevant reporting starts at about the 13:45 mark.
I am a former prosecutor and public defender. If the SS agents do testify as indicated, and then also testify that they did not say what she says they said, her testimony may be rendered worthless. I still don't know why they rushed this testimony, but it may be that they did before having checked her story with the agents involved. If that is the case, this could be a serious blunder. I hate to think of what Hutchinson's life will be like, and what damage this could do to the committee if the agents contradict her. The Trumpers will be screaming that she be indicted for lying to Congress. Her testimony in this regard was hearsay anyway and should have been avoided if it had not been verified by the agents involved.
May be rendered worthless? How about a perjury prosecution? No, of course, not. Because that's not how these things work. Beria's ghost is laughing at how the Democrats have adopted his methods.
I don’t think she would have technically perjured herself. She was repeating hearsay - which makes her testimony completely worthless in court - but a la Ms. Ford, the sting of the accusations will never be forgotten by those that hate Trump and will be used to smear him forever in the press.
I see “show trial” is the new talking point to avoid grappling with the substance.
As a former prosecutor, please allow me to explain why there is no perjury in Hutchinson’s narrative about what occurred in the “Beast” as she was clear and careful about what she said.
She was testifying to what she heard. Had this been in a court of law and a hearsay objection made, the objection could be overruled and the jury instructed that the testimony is admitted not for the truth of the underlying statement (that what she was told about what happened in the “Beast” was true) but that she heard what she heard. Her statement that the person who was present both in the “Beast” and in the room with her did not contradict the story is not hearsay. If that person testified, one line of cross-examination could be whether he even heard the conversation at which he was present. But there’s no hearsay.
It would, of course, be helpful if all potential witnesses testified (including, though it’s a minor if colorful point, the poor WH valet who supposedly had to clean ketchup off the dining room wall). But it seems to me that the GOP has a choice to participate fully. Anyway, let’s now see who is willing to step forward and display even a modicum of the courage shown by a 25 year old woman. Pat Cipollone would be good as a starter.
Charles - what’s shocking is that as a “former prosecutor”, you can’t recognize the difference between a pseudo grand jury made-for-TV show - and an actual congressional inquiry seeking the truth about J6. No cross examination, carefully edited video clips, mostly hearsay testimony and no rebuttal witnesses. The bad news is that the huddled masses aren’t watching - and those who are watching ain’t buying what Lizzy is selling - present company excepted.
The “rebuttal” witnesses seem mostly to fall into two categories at the moment: those who refuse to cooperate and those who plead the Fifth.
If this is the political show trial that some claim, wouldn’t the best way to diminish its credibility be for those with first hand knowledge publicly demand to testify under oath and without conditions? That would certainly be impressive but we all know that’s not going to happen.
The larger picture that is emerging is that everyone in Trump’s inner circle told him there was no evidence of fraud or anything else that might call the election results into question. Theories of what might have been without any supporting evidence are worthless, beyond their fundraising appeal - which is how Trump amassed some $250 million from credulous supporters.
Former prosecutor? So this is your dream I suppose. You make your case, and there's no pesky defense or due process. It's like the Detroit Lions going 16-0 because there's no opposing team on the field. They just set up and march down the field winning games by a score of 180-0.
I admit, even without opposition the Lions probably would be 8-8, but I digress.
Sorry, but some people that were close to him does not constitute 'everyone in his inner circle'. And someone saying 'you lost the election' is far different than 'there was a lot of mischief going on that resulted in you losing the vote count'. Many in his inner circle (and me) felt that this was perhaps the least credible election in the history of the country. For you not to understand and concede that is simply illogical.
Yeah, it sucks. Born/Raised in Detroit, but I've had some great rides with the Pistons, Wings, Tigers and Wolverines (class of '79) though. But to think that over the last thirty years the Lions had, imho, the goat RB, and future all of famers in Calvin Johnson and Matt Stafford and could never manage a decent season, is just wrong. When you're a Lions fan, you don't tune in to see them win, just to see how close they can get.
Her life? She will be a darling of the Left. Someone will set up a GoFundMe and within a few hours it'll have over $1 million in it, shades of Blasey Ford. Next she'll resurface working for CNN or MSNBC or some far Left NGO.
Exactly this. When I first heard the accusations, I thought “She’s overselling it and it’s going to backfire.”
And the quip about “AR-15s” is too on the nose to be believable. It’s testimony calculated to be effective in the current news environment and not true to 1/6. Why not rifles? Assault Weapons? Pistols? Nope, AR-15s.
The Democrats are desperate David Joe’s rating are so low there is nobody in the wings for 2024 it’s the same shitty line up as 2020 who is going to vote for them
I believe from personal experience that the US Secret Service Protective Division is one of the most professional and effective organizations in the government. If you were the person responsible for the President's in-vehicle security, would you accept a vehicle where an occupant could interfere with the driver? Think about that.
If Ms. Hutchinson's testimony is found to be materially false, will this author follow up and say she was misled? I'm betting she will.
Either that, or maybe the January 6th show trial is simply a "fake because," providing cover for what one already wants to believe.
This is not at all a fair representation of what has gone on. Sorry but you have been hoodwinked. Your initial thoughts were correct but some how you fell for the production. Not to mention he was already impeached over this crap and this is a politically motivated sideshow. I have lot of respect for you But this is a total misreading of the situation.
An interesting article. I haven’t watched the hearings but would be happy if the outcome was to prevent Trump from running again. Republicans will have several excellent candidates who will carry on Trump’s policies without Trump’s personal baggage..
As a lawyer, the article demonstrates to me the greatest flaw of the process which is the absence of any meaningful questioning of what was presented. Republicans on the committee were selected by Pelosi in defiance of convention, rather than McCarthy. I view the hearings as a stage show, some of which may be true and some not. The author relies for her conclusion in part on yesterday’s testimony by Ms. Hutchinson. That testimony has already been debunked in part, and maybe in whole, by several sources, including NBC and CNN. The ability for Republicans to cross examine witnesses and present other facts might have produced a very different, and more credible, story for the American people. Unfortunately, we will never know.
I usually love the articles on this site and the unique and differing perspectives offered, but this one right here is just a waste of words and adds no value to the conversation.
First off, Cassie Hutchinson has provided 4 recorded depositions. Here "explosive" testimony was not some last minute bombshell. It was all a ploy to drive up floundering ratings by a desperate Democratic Party and their communication wing - the main stream media. What's more, the Secret Service has given recorded statements that haven't been played, and Engel, the head of Trump's security team, and the limousine driver are saying they'll directly testify that he never grabbed the wheel or assaulted them. She's a scorned ex-aide who wasn't retained by Trump post-WH. I'd take her testimony with a grain of salt especially since not one Congressperson is on the committee to cross examine her.
We already knew Trump pressured state election officials, Mike Pence, and the GOP writ large to "stop the steal." We knew his rhetoric was inflammatory, undemocratic, and unAmerican, and we already knew that the institutions held because the election was certified 3 hours after the rioters entered the Capitol building and he's no longer the President. We knew Trump had an ugly and immoral disdain for Mike Pence especially when the rioters started chanting to hang him.
We knew Trump knew or should've known that his allegations we're baseless. He lost every court cases in which he challenged the results. Does knowing that those closest to him told him so add anything of real value? Does it justify this massive waste or words, time, and taxpayer money? I'd emphatically answer no. And this author is just now learning that Trump was a narcissist and is shocked that he, or any of our politicians, and all about "me, me, me?" Please stop it!
The predetermined verdict of the January 6th committee is that Trump is directly responsible for the riot, yet they haven't connected the dots and they won't. If they could've, it would've been the lead. We're 4 or 5 hearings in and still nothing. It's a carefully crafted kangaroo court to elicit an emotional response to Trump in preparation of the midterms. It's playing politics at the taxpayer expense aided and abetted by a complicit media meant to elicit emotional responses and worthless pieces of commentary like this.
Also another distraction from the fact that the committee members have all lied to us constantly about Trump for five years, and they're still telling lies.
The way to connect the dots to Trump will be to have the testimony of those closest to the matter. Some like Cipollone and Meadows refuse while others like Eastman have taken the Fifth. The hearings aren’t over and we should see what happens.
The problem is the committee has no credibility or semblance of care for the truth. When Nancy Pelosi blocked the Republican appointees, it lost any credibility. If your position is so solid and impeachable, why not allow even the slightest pushback? If the stated goal is to prevent another January 6th, why is it anathema to look at the security failures on that day? Why only appoint Republicans that are sympathetic to your narrative and have no desire to give it an ounce of scrutiny? On top of that, you're investigating the "Big Lie" yet you have multiple committee members, including the chairman, who have all voted against certification of a Republican presidential election. And even more to the point, you placed Adam Schiff on the committee after he spent years lying about a Russia collusion based on information bought and spread to federal law enforcement and the media by the DNC and the Clinton campaign including Hillary herself that he knew was false all while promising more than circumstantial evidence. The credibility was shot the moment the committee was formed.
Also, for years we've endured leak after leak, yet nothing from this committee. Not one leak. Not even a referral to the DOJ. Nothing. We're 4-5 hearings in and nothing about a Trump-rioters connection. No competent politician or media source would bury the lead the way this committee has.
Then yesterday they bring out your bombshell witness and within 5 minutes there's wide spread reporting that she lied about several of her allegations. Did they not even take a moment to verify her accounts after any one of her 4 depositions or before you trumpet her out on live television? And why not release the full transcripts? It's because no testimony matters, just the narrative. And the fact that we haven't heard any direct or consequential connection between Trump and the rioters shows that the explicit claim is even a bridge too far for this kangaroo court. But you keep holding out hope, and in the meantime I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
"Then yesterday they bring out your bombshell witness and within 5 minutes there's wide spread reporting that she lied about several of her allegations."
The "widespread reporting that she lied" is the problem, not Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony of hearing about an incident that she never claimed to witness herself.
With all due respect to Cassidy Hutchinson- who testified under oath, which means that everyone accusing her of lying is implicitly alleging that she's perjured herself- her appearance was media-friendly clickbait, compared to the much more substantive testimony of Jacobs and Luttig. We're dealing with postmodern news bureaus that evidently no longer know the difference.
I'm not sure what else you would call 1) saying you wrote a note you didn't write and 2) "overheard" a conversation about an event that never happened. And the problem is, when you tell outright lies, the rest of your testimony is and should be discredited. And when the J6 committee doesn't bother to verify a witness' testimony and that witness is proved to have told lies, their credibility is reasonably called into question. In fact, in most criminal proceedings, a jury is instructed that they are able to ignore a witness' testimony if they are shown to have been untruthful. Why should it be different with this committee?
In regards to the witnesses you mentioned, they've added nothing of substance to the conversation. It's been known for a long while that Trump pressured Pence (which I think was beyond ridiculous and inexcusable mind you). Hell he tweeted about it. What did they present that draws a direct connection between Trump and the rioters? I'll wait.
""I'm not sure what else you would call 1) saying you wrote a note you didn't write and 2) "overheard" a conversation about an event that never happened. And the problem is, when you tell outright lies, the rest of your testimony is and should be discredited..."
Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath; if she's obviously lied, as you're implying, not only is her testimony discredited, she can be indicted for perjury. I haven't heard anyone calling for her to be indicted for perjury.
I have heard a lot of insinuations that Cassidy Hutchinson is lying. The people casting those aspersions don't even have a plausible motive for her to confabulate her sworn testimony, much less evidence that she has done so.
It's common for people to overhear (minus irony quotes)- or to just plain hear- reports of events at secondhand from other people which they have no way of verifying. That's normal, verging on ubiquitous.
The Washington Post reports that the Secret Service agents disputing Hutchinson's account are expected to be directed by their superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to testify before the committee. If that occurs, the testimony they provide with also be under oath, and liable to perjury charges if it can be shown that any of their statements are false.
I never mentioned perjury because her almost her entire testimony was hearsay evidence, which 1) is not allowed in an actual court and 2) how do you prove someone committed perjury when they're recounting hearsay evidence? It's a tricky legal situation way above my paygrade.
There has been a plausible motive given: she was original reported to be staying on with Trump per the NYT I believe, but then he denied her a position. Could she be a scorned ex-aide or a courageous truth teller? We don't know because there's no one on the committee who is willing to cross examine her and get to the root of her motives. Instead, everyone is left to retreat to their own camps. And that is a fundamental flaw of the Committee and why, except for those firmly fixed in the Democrats camp, these hearings haven't moved the needle.
I agree the Secret Service agent should give sworn, televised statements to directly refute her testimony. If I'm not mistaken, they've been cooperating, but amazingly we haven't seen or heard any previous statements. And you insinuate that these agents should provide testimony under penalty of perjury to see if "it can be shown that any of their statements are false" but you're so willing to accept Cassidy Hutchinson's without an ounce of scrutiny. This is why we have an adversarial legal system in America, so that each side has an equal chance to scrutinize the evidence and witness testimony, but you're implying (and I'm not trying to straw man here) that it should be entirely one sided. This is why the majority of Americans, myself included, don't care much for this kangaroo court.
For some reason (perhaps related to the fact that my phone is old) I can see when a comment comes in but can’t get to the comment directly.
What I’ll say in response is the following. If I follow Brad C’s argument then the 1/6 committee was created to be a hit job and yet managed to bungle it all by burying the lede. Maybe. But it’s clear (and even Trump agrees but for different reasons) that McCarthy miscalculated in his handling of the staffing issues. Sworn testimony has more credibility than unsworn statements and, to channel Giuliani, theories without supporting evidence are useless.
I do agree that if a criminal case is to be made against Trump, the dots must be connected between him and, for instance, the Proud Boys. If that connection cannot be made because Trump was uninvolved, or if whether he knew can’t be established because (1) the war room at the Waverley Hotel that we hear about was set up in such a way as to insulate Trump from direct knowledge - though maybe not Meadows, Giuliani and Stone to name only an obvious few or (2) the Proud Boys or whomever did act entirely on their own, then knowing these things would still be in the public interest.
I would be curious to hear the details of Trump’s meeting(s) and discussions with the various Congresspersons who strategized with him about “Stop the Steal” which led to the testimony attributed to Trump that he wanted the DOJ to announce that an investigation into fraud in the election was opened and that he and his Congressional allies would take it from there. I find that sworn testimony very troubling.
The investigation and hearings continue as does at least one federal grand jury proceeding, so at this moment, the jury’s out.
Here's my whole thing with the J6 Committee, why is it necessary? As you stated there is a federal grand jury proceeding. I too am eager to see what comes of not only a grand jury investigation but any trial that may result from it. I am by no means a Trumper - I'm actually an independent - and if he or anyone else committed a crime, that person should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The J6 Committee does not come close to the legitimacy of a criminal proceeding and is a purely political exercise. There's no due process, cross examination of evidence and witnesses, or transparency of the full evidentiary record, which are hallmarks of our judicial system. As such, we're getting only one side of the coin and a carefully crafted version it at that. It's all cherry-picked clips and carefully selected live testimony. Also, there's purely political actors with obvious motives to lie and manipulate, and who have, in fact, spent years doing so. It doesn't even have the legitimacy of an actual select committee because its end is not ordered towards oversight or legislative, which are the only purview of Congress. Thus, unless they release all of the evidence in total, without the political aggrandizing, theatrics, and media production, I am highly skeptical of anything this committee has to offer.
To end on some common ground, I am curious just as you are about the meetings and discussions that occurred.
The House Committee is on the same fact-finding mission as many other Congressional hearings. The widely televised hearings have already led more witnesses to volunteer their sworn testimony (it's highly unlikely that limiting the inquiry to a closed grand jury proceeding would produce a similar result.) I find the hearings to consist of newsworthy information that's germane to a very serious situation; after all, never in American history has a mob stormed the US Capitol. Moreover, that violent protest was carried out with the explicit political goal of disrupting the transfer of power from the incumbent President to the newly elected one, with the goal of keeping the defeated incumbent in office.
That adds some extra features to the situation that elevate it above the scope of an ordinary riot, and I don't get how Americans who continually offer comparisons to other civil disorders don't grasp the extra significance of violent rioters storming the US Capitol while the Congress was in chambers with the explicit goal of shutting down their Constitutionally ordained mission that day, an effort that was only thwarted inside the building by the resort to deadly force by police at a hallway barrier was practically the last line of defense. The consequence of public Congressional hearings on those events is entirely in order. It dismays me that any member of the American public disagrees with that view, much less members of Congress.
As I've already said, I think Speaker Pelosi blundered terribly by refusing to accept GOP House Minority leader McCarthy's full slate of Republicans. But that doesn't turn the hearing into a witch hunt. Nor does it discredit the sworn testimony offered by the witnesses. I don't think that the selection of witnesses can be accurately called "cherry-picked" when the witnesses themselves are refusing to offer their sworn testimony- as is the case with former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who has not only refused to testify but whose lawyers are currently fighting the release of his cellphone records for January 6, when Hutchinson testified that he spent a substantial amount of time scrolling through his phone at the time that the Capitol protests were getting out of hand.
Of course there's "media production"-it's a television broadcast. Of course there's a theatrical element. Of course there's drama. None of those elements discredit the hearings, per se. In fact, if the 2 candidates from McCarthy's slate of 5 that were rejected by Pelosi were on the panel, there would have been even more theatricality and political aggrandizement. And this is a case where I would have welcomed it.
(I've watched several hours of these hearings; it's worth noting that thus far, I've noticed very little bloviation by the House members, who are content to question witnesses with a minimum of irrelevant grandstanding. at least while in session. As such, the 1/6 hearings have provided a marked contrast to the rhetorical windiness associated with so many other publicly televised Congressional committee hearings I've watched/listened to over the years on C-Span, on topics ranging from coal regulations to Presidential impeachment referrals.)
As someone who has frequently been a critic of Nancy Pelosi's decisions as Speaker of the House over the years, to me her refusal to accept the entire slate offered by Kevin McCarthy is just another example of political ineptitude; not only did she provide the pretext for most of the GOP to disdain the hearings, she also provided an excuse for tens of millions of Trump voters to justify not paying any attention to their content. In my amateur, non-politico, ex-cabdriver opinion, those are precisely the folks who most need to tune in to the proceedings. But notwithstanding my bewilderment over Pelosi's decision, it doesn't automatically discredit the testimony offered in the hearings, or the questions being asked. The actual content is well worth reviewing. https://www.c-span.org/search/?sdate=&edate=&congressSelect=&yearSelect=&searchtype=Videos&sort=Most+Recent+Event&text=0&sponsorid%5B%5D=139816&formatid%5B%5D=26
Common Sense? Nah, Nonsense. Who informed the President about the AR-15s; and exactly how did that person know that information? This is critical because reporting by Julie Kelly indicates that no one was armed. I would also question the source of the information because reporting by Revolver News and others suggest that the FBI infiltrated the groups participating in the demonstration. See Ray Epps. Ms. Batya is an astute observer and her wrenching "realization" about J6 is genuine, but is she being snookered by the spectacle of the hearing - and such performers as Raskin, Schiff, and Cheney - without asking herself was the President right? Maybe, just maybe, the President had had enough of impeachment, collusion, resistance, and the deep state. Subsequent information indicates a lot of chicanery about the election, not least Zuckbucks, 2000 Mules, the Feb 2021 Time report by Molly Ball, and the reporting of Julie Kelly. take a very deep breath Ms. Batya. the final chapter to these hearings is yet to be written.
I think you’re an amazing woman whose opinion I greatly respect. I agree that there are things I’ve learned about Trump from direct testimony of these witnesses that I did not know and I do not think Trump is fit for office. At the same time I am so offended by the one-sided, holier-than-thou nature of the committee members. A few of whom voted to overturn the results of the 2016 election! What the heck? I also don’t know what to make of the security detail that day who are willing to testify that Trump didn’t want to go to the Capitol. The whole hearing would have meant so much more if it weren’t so one-sided. Every time I tune in I can’t help but think wouldn’t it be great id we had another committee spectacle event like this one with slick editing and the reveal of taped testimonials of Sudan Rice and Obama and Comey and Clapper etc who set Trump up with the Christopher Steele dossier and on and on. I’d love to see an enactment of the behind the scenes conversations and planning that went into that insurrection!!! It’s all terrible.
I have not watched the hearings. They are made-for-TV propaganda and a distraction from the daily horrors created by the current administration. The only evidence I need to support that assertion is Pelosi’s unprecedented refusal to seat Republican-nominated members to the Committee, and abandon the constructive adversarial process that is a hallmark of our legislative and judicial systems.
After five years of being demonized, falsely accused, and thwarted at nearly every turn in his Presidency, I can understand any man’s frustration boiling over into conduct that is nonetheless unacceptable. And for someone as narcissistic as Trump it’s almost predictable.
However, the riot on January 6 still has too many questions unanswered: why was an unarmed woman shot and killed? Why were the Capitol police so unprepared? Why did Nancy Pelosi refuse additional security support? Were there covert government agents in the crowd, and what did they do to incite or stop the attack? Why have those accused of participating been jailed and subjected to abuse in confinement while Antifa members who burned, murdered, plundered multiple cities gone largely unpunished?
I want a President who will be a statesman, an honorable exemplar for the country, a person of temperance, common sense, and integrity. The hearings are going to do nothing to achieve that.
I haven’t watched the hearings and still won’t. I voted for Trump twice knowing that he was a somewhat unfiltered narcissist. I hope he doesn’t run again as he is getting old and his style is stale. From what I’ve read these hearings and the committee are 100% biased so I still have no reason to watch. My only question is will the libs and Dems still want to impeach Trump 20 years after he’s dead.
I don’t want to vote for him either, but if they keep this stupid stuff up, I will personally throw myself at his feet and beg him to run. What I’d love is some bipartisan ticket, preferably with two ladies because It’s time we inject that into the office, but I’d take an asexual cocker spaniel with a lisp and three legs if it made this nonsense stop.
Just turn on CNN or MSNBC and what is their lead story? Illegals dying in a truck? Ukraine? Primary results in several states? Nope. Some woman overheard some stuff and presented it as fact.
Americans are being hyponotized, brain washed. Idiots.
Amazing how many refuse to see Trump for what he is - a narcissistic bully who tried to bully other republicans to break the law. Do you also believe he won the election? Is your hate of the Democrats keeping you from seeing reality. Most of the evidence is coming from Republicans. It’s sad to watch what Trump has done to the Republican Party.
I do not know if Trump won the 2020 election. What I do know is that the 2020 election was illegitimate. Reason number 1: the wide spread censorship of the Biden laptop story, not discussed on mainstream media and literally banned from social media.
This is honestly bizarre to me, as I don't know a single right-winger who does NOT openly acknowledge Trump's narcissism.
No, I think this comment is a reflection of your ignorance of Republicans, not a reflection of the actual people.
What I see is that conservatives universally acknowledge their moral issues with Trump, while liberals absolutely refuse to publicly criticize the abundant and ongoing evils in their party.
Case in point, Adam Schiff acknowledging he spread lies about Trump for years and would do it again.
If you don't have a problem with that, Al, and you think he and his cohorts are trustworthy after they publicly acknowledged they are not.....I really don't know what to say to you
I've read, watched, and observed the behavior or Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, AOC, Chuck Schumer, and others in "responding to" or "questioning" congressional testimony. It was the most frightening, eye opening experience of my adult political life. Regan was absolutely correct when he said "we can lose our republic in one generation."
Of course I don't think it is all right. I can't stand Adam schiff. Not sure what makes you an expert on Republicans but in my humble opinion, Trump asisde from his narcissicm, is morally corrupt and his impact on the Republican party has been a disaster. He only lasted one term and rightfully so. Hopefully a new candidate with some ethical standards will run and win for the Republicans.
He's the first president in history to not start a military engagement and instead created successful peace treaties in the Middle East. His was the most pro-peace administration of my lifetime, and they were successfully holding Putin at bay. I can't fathom how you're glad we changed that.
Trump created a more diverse Republican Party and gained record support from Blacks and other minorities. How exactly is that a disaster? If Democrats truly believed in diversity they would give Trump credit for making Republicans more diverse.
Things like this are why I can't respect the Trump hate anymore, especially when it was crafted by five years of willful lies, conspiracy theories, and hate-mongering propaganda from sore Democrat losers.
You make some good points, but under Trump, the party has shifted to the extreme right. His diversifiction of the party was there but minimal. It's a big country. Surely we can find a good candidate with Trumps fiscal policies that is not morraly corrupt.
This is a dangerous fallacy. Social polling on policy issues for twenty years have demonstrated that the right has changed very little, and the left has changed radically. In fact that even defines what "conservative" or "progressive" refers to.
Republicans didn't become radicals, Democrats did. You think they're extreme right because you can no longer see the middle. This isn't opinion, it's social science.
And it's not that I think Trump isn't morally corrupt - it's that I think Pence and others like him, doing the real work, are the best this country has. And I think every Democrat in the federal government is incompetent and lacking in any ethical integrity.
Want to change my mind? Boycott China, or shut up about racism and slavery because you're actively empowering it.
Democrats have no competent or ethical leadership. Year by year, I learn more about their crimes and incompetence and it just gets worse. The passion and power with which their leadership have been shielding serial rapists is shocking, and the party is now raiding journalists for exposing it.
And you think giving them power is a moral improvement?
Suggesting that every Democrat in the Federal government is incompetent and lacking in any ethical integrity is simply nonsense. That tells me you are extreme right with no chance of sensible discussion. Agree to disagree.
These hearings are supposed to be about Jan 6, not presenting more evidence that Trump is a selfish asshole. We already know that. So far, the hearings have done little to explain how Jan 6 happened and instead focus on why we should all hate Trump. Same message we’ve heard from MSM media since 2016.
Trump is a narcissistic asshole. So is Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff. This is political theater, just like the Russia hearings and the impeachment hearings. They are staffed by the same folks by and large, with the same goals. We see things very clearly. It’s you who are frustrated we don’t agree with you.
I am a centrist conservative and support our Constitution as written. I am also a fan of Bari and Common Sense is one of the few media sources I spend my limited time reading. I am not, and have never been, a fan of Donald Trump. He is a petty, bombastic, crude, self-aggrandizing buffoon. He also did some incredible things against huge odds during his administration that I fully supported. I voted for him out of resignation and dismay that we could not provide better candidates, in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Many like me are not convinced that the 2020 election was the "most secure ever", and the recent documentary, 2000 Mules, presented a heretofore unrecognized manner in which the election might have been subverted, and possibly produced a fraudulent outcome. This needs to be further investigated. I hope Trump does not run again. He had his day and I cannot stand the thought of another four years of unhinged anti-Trump rage. Biden is the worst president in my lifetime.
That said, I have not watched the Jan. 6 hearings. To be candid, I do not have the time and my past efforts at watching such things has been a futile exercise. All are largely theater intended to obtain or justify a particular political or ideological position and politicians are unable to avoid pontificating when they have a soapbox. I am astounded by this article. Ungar-Sargon admits that the hearing is blatantly partisan yet accepts the testimony at face value. We have countless examples of government functionaries lying under oath during the Russian collusion hoax to de-throne Trump and I would vouchsafe that never in American history has there been such a determined, no-holds-barred effort to delegitimize a duly-elected American president as occurred during Trumps presidency. My view of the videos of the Capital on Jan. 6 was of an unruly, disorganized protest gone bad and I feel this has been typically overblown by the left into some sort of top down attempt at an insurrection. It is much along the lines of "most peaceful protests" during the BLM riots. Are we to believe the progressive narrative and testimony of the left or our lying eyes?
I hope to see a reasoned, civil rebuttal of this terrible article.
Rick Bosshardt, MD
You said it better than I ever could. I applaud you.
The Jan. 6 committee is a disgrace, an aberration and its actions have been appalling. Look at what they have done to Peter Navarro and John Eastman as the latest examples.
Completely agree with you both.
Weiss was good in her early stages, when she was writing about wokesterism is schools. now she's outsourced a lot of her work, and sends us this kind of bullshit. After what's happened the last 2 years, hard to believe Batya Ungar-Sargon unquestioningly believes what he sees on state media. And Weiss must agree with him to give him air time. But I guess there's still a few of 'em out there.
I was ambushed with auto-renew on my subscription to her substack. If I had had any notice, I definitely would have canceled.
You can always go in and cancel to stop the reoccurring charges. I just did that for exactly the reasons you mentioned. I had paused it a while back, returned to see if it had improved, discovered it hadn’t with this propaganda piece, and cancelled my paid subscription as well as the the publication sending me notifications.
The head of the secret service, Engle, who was actually there, came out immediately after the hearing and said it didn’t happen. He and the agents would like to testify, under oath, that it didn’t happen. Why wouldn’t the show trial J6 “committee” have asked these people up front?
This is a pure Stalinist show trial, and like the trials in the USSR, the simple-minded gullible fools uncritically buy whatever 💩 they are sold no matter how many times the exact same people lie to them.
If Bari wants to keep pushing debunked propaganda, and this is most definitely not the first time, that’s fine. I’m not paying for it, nor am I wasting my time reading it.
It takes a rather large fool to believe the President’s arms are 10ft long and can grab the wheel from his seat. It takes a fool to think they needed to have “testimony” from someone who wasn’t there, but “heard” about it like a 6th grade gossip queen, but the J6 “committee” never actually bothered to get testimony from someone who was actually there about what happened.
This publication has become the joke Weiss supposedly was trying to leave behind..........
Batya Ungar-Sargon may be impressed with the new “details” he heard from the January 6 Committee, but he seems disinterested in details that after a year and a half, have not been provided. Here are some of the ones I have:
What intel did Pelosi receive about potential violence on January 6 and why did she hamstring the Capital Police by dismissing their request for additional force, including as any as 20,000 national guard troops offered by Trump?
Who concocted and spread the lie that officer Sicknick was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher? Why were the autopsy results disproving the lie withheld for 3 months?
Why hasn’t all footage of the event been released, including the footage of unarmed, 90-pound Ashli Babbit being shot to death by Lt. Michael Byrd, ostensibly for posing a threat to him as she tried to crawl through a broken window?
Were there any FBI instigators in the crowd? Were they part of a Red Flag operation like the one they engineered in the attempted “abduction" of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer?
There are plenty more questions to be answered and I’m sure with just a little effort, Bari could come up with a few more.
Yeah and in typical LEFT fashion they didn't allow a defense. The LEFT doesn't allow a defense or a debate because if that would have happened their SHAM would fall apart for everyone to see. Typical LEFTIES. The minute you start talking FACTS and FIGURES they all huff and puff and squash the conversation by either mocking you or calling you a name.
The fact that we went two years and counting during a "pandemic" with so many aggressive polices and mandates and not one public debate happened between the sanctioned expert authorities and the censored expert authorities and there was no public outcry for transparency and debate that amounted to anything fair and balanced shows you how unconscious most of the population is today. Sad.
"Yeah and in typical LEFT fashion they didn't allow a defense".
That's why it's so laughable to hear the leftist “anger” directed at Merrick Garland for his apparent passivity in indicting Trump. Maybe they're too dumb to know that any trial will require cross examination and deposing witnesses but he does. If this is the best Pelosi's Kangaroo Court has I doubt even a partisan hack like Garland is willing to indict and suffer the humiliation and embarrassment he did by classifying moms domestic terrorist's because they objected to their children being labeled racists.
That is one of the more specious positions I've heard. The LEFT doesn't allow a defense? Liz Cheney is a part of the Left? This is a fight within the various Power Elite factions and has nothing to do with "Lefties" or Righties.
"The minute you start talking FACTS and FIGURES they all huff and puff and squash the conversation by either mocking you or calling you a name."
That is Trumpian behavior in a nutshell.
Very excellent points. A broader hearing would touch on at least some of these issues. At the same time, I think the writer of this article is not focused so much on the comprehensive facts of this entire sordid affair - which do deserve investigation - but on the personality and behavior of President Trump. No matter how selective the Jan 6 Committee is of its facts, and no matter how effective his presidency was in many respects, I don't want this guy representing me to the world any more than I want Hillary or Biden.
Not sure why it takes three months to find out Officer Sicknick died of a stroke as opposed to having his head bashed in with a fire extinguisher. Shouldn’t this be obvious within days? When you have such an obvious lie repeated for months in major press organs, you lose faith and interest in their future reporting. I would like to see the New York Times explain/justify this in an article. Also, why were some persons on camera encouraging demonstrators to enter the Capitol never arrested? Hmmm. Who were they? Lastly, how do you have an attempted coup, as it was frequently termed, with virtually no weapons when you can, I think, buy guns at Walmart? The fact that almost no one was armed in a country where guns are widely available makes the argument for a demonstration that went out of control.
Killer points, Lisa.
Why hasn't Rey Epps been arrested? Why hasn't he been traveling the MSM interview circuit? Why isn't he writing a book about his experience and cashing in? Why was Ray Epps on video urging people to "go into the Capital"? Why has the MSM ignored Ray Epps and those arrested for just walking around? We all need to stop supporting MSM and Businesses that promote corruption, racial division, lawlessness and claim to have the moral high ground.
Great points
Thanks NCMom. You said this better than I did. It's a show trial.
The adversary process has served our nation well for over 200 years. The Democrats and their cronies in social media believe they can fool us all by protecting us from "misinformation." You know, "for the greater good." Isn't that convenient how the greater good always benefits them... ... while turning Democrat-controlled cities and constituencies into wastelands. What, really have the Democrats done for black people in the last 60 years? Chicago, Baltimore and other Dem-controlled cities are killing fields. In the schools, teachers make a lot more money (40% more than private school teachers) but the students are learning less. And what they're learning is, whites are inherently evil and can't help themselves. How is that going to help them compete in a world economy?
Rant off.
They haven't fooled all of us. But the publication of this piece shows they're still fooling a lot of people.
The question really isn’t what the Democrats have done for us in the last 60 years as much as it is what they have done to us in the last two.
It is not even a show trial - because at show trials you at least get a chance to respond to the ‘evidence’.
It's "North Korean Style Propaganda" that idiots devour in an effort to quell their unconscious Ego.
nice pop.
No you don’t
"The adversary process has served our nation well for over 200 years"
Agreed. Thus you would have thought McCarthy would have made an honest attempt to get respected Republicans on there, not sabotage it with idiots like Jim Jordan
Not me anymore. Thank you NCmom and Evil Incarnate……
This article was the last straw for me, just cancelled my subscription also.
I think all of us, progressives and conservatives, have to get over canceling our subscriptions and our friendships as soon as we are faced with opinions with which we disagree. Far better to counter them with sound argument and debate
I don't cancel friends or family over political or ideological differences. That has nothing to do with how I choose to spend my money. I also choose to pay for 23 other Substacks that approach their publications from a variety of perspectives. I am personally unwilling to pay for this propaganda, and this is not the first time I have seen this particular publication push debunked propaganda. I am not Bari's personal friend.
I am all for opinions I disagree with, but not paying to read how some Stalinist show trial "changed" someone's mind when they mind changing propaganda was debunked by the people actually there within minutes. While most of his extended family has escaped, my husband has an aunt and first cousins still in Cuba. I can tell you from family how a population itching for a leftist cultural revolution and willing to buy into propaganda ends - lots of poverty, death, and misery.
There isn't good debate about issues or solutions with articles that are this poor in quality (unlike Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi who wouldn't publish this nonsense without at least including the testimony was immediately disputed by those with actual first hand knowledge).
The world would suck if everyone agreed on everything. It would be utter boredom. Part of that is completely respecting that other people will make a different choice than me, which is fantastic, but doesn't change my personal choice on how I spend my own money.
I have not cancelled a single friendship over politics, and I have in-laws who are card carrying socialist conspiracy nutters. I do not subscribe to Mother Jones, or the Washington Post however because thier reporting is garbage despite my being liberal. I do subscribe to the Daily Wire not because I always agree with their conservative viewpoint (I often don't) but because the reporting has integrity. While having an admittedly conservative spin, they usually get the facts right and when they don't they correct the record. I have had several instances in the past where a Common Sense article just didn't fact check and misrepresented things. This was the last straw.
Me too. I am very careful allow differing opinion and will stay subscribed to people I disagree with often if I feel they are bringing an interesting perspective, but this is just National Enquirer garbage. This isn't an opinion, this is heresay and hysteria.
I can't help but find all this outrage pretty funny. When push comes to shove, all conservatives seem to want is a Fox News-style echo chamber that just tells them what they want to hear 24/7.
However many subscriptions BW & CS lose because they chose to criticize Republicans' beloved God-Emperor Trump, I can't imagine they'll be missed. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
How many times has Bari admitted, Russia-Gate was a hoax—as all of us—she fell for it too. This latest bombastic testimony falls right under the same category. This lady "heard" these allegations ??? Really? and we call this treasured testimony?
Daily revelations across the past 6 years left us breathlessly awaiting the cuffs to fall upon Trump's wrists—charges so grim—only to find fake news from our trusted media had hoaxed us yet again.
Absolutely agree. Many of the Trump cultists are just sad precious little snowflakes - much like the wokesters they correctly criticize.
I voted for Trump twice, and I'd vote for him if he manages to run again, but every other time he opens his mouth he shoots himself in the foot.
It's amazing he can still walk. He is definitely a flawed human being but
he is open and honest about it, unlike his successor. I cut him slack because he is not a politician, he is a business man.
GOOD FOR YOU. THESE people are either idiots or - so lucky that they literally never had to worry their pretty little heads about anything - ever. I was actually at an earlier rally in DC. ANTIFA AND BLM ARE VERY PRESENT THERE.
You seem like a very precious snowflake. You are now heartbroken over criticism of Trump and your fixed world view? Maybe you are more 'woke' then you think.
BATYA IS A WOMAN. I've recommended her book and YouTube vid's on "woke" and its subversion of media a few times. Another woman, Shoshanna Zuboff is also an author I recommend with a book and YouTube vid's on the tactics of the corporate/surveillance state and its assault on civil liberty and citizen privacy.
That said: For myself, the loathsome venality of the Democratic Party so outweighs any culpability of those accused in the Trump/January 6 hearings that it is painful, loathsome and almost impossible to stay in the room with an electronic device broadcasting it.
I enjoy the articles Ms. Weiss posts here and the cross section of authors she presents. Some pieces lean a little too far toward the red meat spectrum and lack the depth Glenn, Matt and Wesley bring to the fight but she also lends platform and voice too many suffering the everyday consequences of the woke/totalitarian Bund now assaulting us. In fairness she also links us to sources we might pursue in our own search for clarity. This SUBSCRIPTION JOURNALISM thing is a brand new puppy dog and has the potential to grow the truth telling teeth that will free us from the stage show sleight of hand politics like the 1/6 hearings. Don't give up on her yet.
I am an annual subscriber here (and Matt, Glenn, et al.) and will not cancel because of this article. It is useful to read this article as it indicates what is in the mind of the circle on the left that hates President Trump.
Yeah. Have to allow Bari some room to run different opinions and her time to vet is no doubt limited like yours and mine. Anyway provokes good comments.
I understand and respect your point. I pay for another 23 authors on substack, and subscribe to numerous more, with a huge variety of viewpoints. I don't mind reading people with a different perspective and opinion, it's how I learn.
But.......... I also won't personally pay for plainly debunked propaganda as that is free and abundant. I can turn the subscription back on down the road if I chose to, but I think this model only works if there are consequences for becoming the msm. I respect others will come to a conclusion more similar to yours, which is good that we have different reactions to articles like this.
I am in the market looking for truth, and acknowledgement of actual causes and outcomes. I hope Weiss brings this publication back to that place and I feel it's worth my money at some point in the future, but for me today, it's not.
Wish I could afford 23.
I'm gonna re-read Batya's article with your comments in mind.
Mrs. Weiss seems to have a good social conscience and fair play as do most of the authors she places on Common Sense. I suspect that you and I may share the feeling that many of the well educated observers ensconced behind the shield of financial success underestimate what the players behind the current ascending world fascism are capable of.
Let me recommend a book. THE AION LECTURES: Exploring the Self in C.G. Jung's AION by Edward F. Edinger. It's a slow read but once you get it there's a lot of light for consideration.
I agree Mike. We don't need to become what we are fighting against. Batya is a woman and I do usually enjoy hearing her and reading her. This article is a tough one because this hearing is a dog and pony show for the left and has lost its believability from the start, if they can't handle dissenting views on their committee how can we believe them? We learned some new things from his staff that we should all take into consideration, but it did not sway my mind that this whole thing was promoted for political reasons and the fact that this wasn't a true bi-partisan committee means it can't be taken seriously. From what I can tell Trump handled himself horribly and in response to what appeared to be unfair practices in the election (would be nice to see a real deep dive into how this election was held and exactly how and why we got the outcome we did - if it is all on the up and up there is no problem with this and either way would restore confidence in the process). I am not a Trump fan, but I did like many of his policies and that he would fight hard against the left. Just the mere fact of two sides trying to hold each other in check is important. Honestly, we all need to step back and become more objective if we ever want to get out of this culture war. Bari I am not leaving you! We can't expect you to bat a thousand. Batya, I will keep reading you too, while I may often disagree I learn a lot from you and how you look at issues. Curious to see a response, but even if there isn't one I am still a big Bari fan!
I'm also a fan of the ladies in question. And, I agree that expansion of SUBSTACK possibilities to include special investigative reporting on the smoke screened D.C. hog trough would begin to define a new empowerment of the American national dialogue. Stay strong. Saty clear.
Dissenting views?
Many of the points made are very clearly binary. Did this occur? Yes or No.
Did you say or do this? Yes or No.
As far as a lack of GOP representation: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/21/politics/nancy-pelosi-rejects-republicans-from-committee/index.html
And countering, well that is CNN is not an argument. Once again, this is binary. Did it occur? Yes or No.
I hope her book craters. I’d never read it after the infantile article she just wrote here. Hundreds of pages if drivel like this? What a waste of time.
Trump tying to commandeer "the Beast" has as much credibility at Trump
peeing in Moochelle's hotel bed in Moscow.
And yet, we see, as the progressives knew we would, that audiences can be fooled all of the time.
That was my indicator that this "witness" (of hearsay) was full of it. Not sure how one would manage to try to grab the steering wheel while riding in the back of a limo.
I'm still amazed how many have such little grasp on reality or human nature that they actually believed as plausible that a US Billionaire, with a beautiful wife and access to gorgeous women, who is a germaphobe, who does not drink or do drugs, would fly to Russia for the purpose of letting hookers pee on him. Trump has a lot of personality quirks and flaws., but all of them point away from Russian hookers peeing of him, not towards it.
Especially now that the witness has been debunked by several and the committee is ignoring that she lied under oath. Its quite appalling. It had destroyed this country’s whatever was left trust in our government.
I will miss your good comments, NCmom. Today I am enjoying the comments so much more than the silly article.
Makes you glad to be alive doesn't it.
:-)
Thank you for the kind compliment.
This isn't a trial. It's a Congressional hearing that is part of an investigation gathering evidence.
And you are focusing on one disputed aspect that Cassidy Hutchinson fully acknowledged was related to her by Tony Ornato (who may very well be lying) to discredit the entire hearing. And it isn't even a terribly important claim. It is a salacious claim that is sucking up all the oxygen despite having little bearing on Trump's attempt to overthrow our constitutional order.
(Not to mention that Trump wasn't riding in the Presidential limo. He was in a smaller vehicle that wouldn't have required his arms to be "10 feet long".) Much of what else she reports are things she witnessed firsthand. She *was* there.
As were virtually all of the other people who testified to the things that happened behind the scenes. White House lawyers and staffers, his own AG, his campaign manager - his *own daughter* for crying out loud.
If you're going to call people "fools", then I'll have to note that it takes a "rather large fool" to side with a man making an unprecedented attempt to remain in office after clearly losing an election that he was almost universally expected to lose by anyone paying attention to the polls and political dynamics of the country, and which he told you *well beforehand* that he was going to dispute if he lost - after having made the same claim about the election he won four years ago.
It's a Democrat propaganda set piece dressed up to look like a congressional hearing.
Please answer this question: When before has a congressional hearing not provided an opportunity for the party opposite to question witnesses?
Please don't point to Kinzinger and Cheney. They were appointed by Pelosi because they are allied with the Dems in their hatred for Trump. It's like, you can have your own lawyer. But the prosecutor gets to appoint him.
I'll be happy to, but ultimately you'll have to ask Kevin McCarthy.
You see, when he provided his initial list of five to Nancy Pelosi it included two congressman who both lent serious credence to Trump's false election fraud claims - which per se is entirely inappropriate on a committee that is investigating the actual facts behind an insurrection spurred by those very same fraudulent claims. Jim Jordan, a key Trump ally, was himself a potential target of the investigation, and Jim Banks made it clear he intended to use the committee to investigate Democrats rather than the actual source of the insurrection.
Obviously, having these two on the committee would have undermined its credibility and threatened to turn it into a referendum on whether the election was stolen, which was already not in dispute. To use an analogy similar to yours, it would have been like having mobsters on a panel investigating the mob.
So Pelosi accepted the other three, but rejected Jordan and Banks. All McCarthy had to do was replace two people who were obviously there to derail the committee in the first place with people whose commitment to discovering the truth wouldn't be so validly and obviously in question.
At that point, McCarthy pulled all five and decided his best bet would be to paint the committee as a partisan witch-hunt. Which has apparently worked for some, as he has spent the time since then lying to the media, claiming that Pelosi wouldn't let him appoint anyone to the committee, and saying that she violated over 200 years of precedent in doing so. And of course, ignoring the fact that rejecting proposed submissions to a select committee is hardly unprecedented, as well as the irony of him attempting to shield an *actual* unprecedented act - refusing to concede a presidential election and plotting to overturn the results - from being exposed to the light of day.
Oh, and a couple more things, Mr. Incarnate. Or may I call you Evil? :-)
Seriously, if what you're saying is that you actually would have liked a truly independent, non-partisan commision to investigate this (like say, the 9/11-commission), the Democrats agreed with you. Which is why they proposed one, and it easily passed the House even with some Republican support. Unfortunately, Mitch McConnel filibustered it in the Senate. His rationale? He claimed it would be a political exercise! After all, they already had two committees in a Democratic-controlled Senate looking into it - what more would a non-partisan, independent commission add?!
So you see, the Democrats tried to give you what you wanted, but Republicans blocked it. Why did the Democrats do this? Because some of them still care about credibility and doing things the right way? Maybe. Because they don't care about their electoral fortunes and are willing to put them on the line for the truth? Of course not. Because they were *extremely* confident in what an independent commission would find, given everything we already know? Bingo.
And for that matter, so was Mitch McConnel. Which is why the last thing he wanted was to plant an electoral time bomb that might go off right when his party might be trying to re-elect (albeit against his better judgement) the very guy he didn't have the balls to deliver the political coup de grace to when he had the chance. Better to leave everything in a state that he could denounce as "partisan" if need be. So thanks to him, what we're left with is this "partisan" House select committee that you don't trust.
But let me tell you where you're making a *huge* mistake in that regard. Because, say what you want about Cheney and Kinzinger - what you can't call them is *partisan*. They're *tanking* their political careers for this. Cheney was the #3 Republican in Congress, and now she probably wont be there next term. Kinzinger was redistricted away in Illinois - think the Democrats are doing him any favors for this? He'd be doomed either way.
You see, that's the real shit. That's when you really know that someone is sincere. They may be motivated by hatred of Trump - but when someone is willing to ignore their own career interests, that has to make you wonder if they have a good reason. Every single one of Trump's defenders - and of those who remain silent - knows that opposing Trump would be committing political suicide. Cheney and Kinsinger are doing just that - all while enraging their base and getting death threats.
If that doesn't mean anything to you, it should. Because those are two people refusing to engage in the kabuki and being *real*.
When has the Minority Whip done the following: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/21/politics/nancy-pelosi-rejects-republicans-from-committee/index.html
Don't paint all that you dislike as a failure of the "Libs" that is either ignorant or trying to make a point through manipulation. Failed leadership is failed leadership and there is enough to go around on both sides of the aisle.
LOL!!! Oh yes, gathering "evidence" involves hiring a TV producer named James Goldston, then airing on live television pure gossip from a disgruntled chic that wasn't even there rather than bothering to ask those who were actually there (including the head of secret service Engle, who was actually there, and along with the agent driving immediately refuted said gossip and asked to testify to that under oath). No, she wasn't there. She is repeating what she claims she was "told."
As for fools, every single one of the dozens of Biden disasters was predictable, and actually predicted, and you voted for him anyway because the media told you orange man hurt your feelings. LOL!!!!
Yes, I support a booming economy, school choice so children not as fortunate as mine can go to their excellent and open throughout Covid private school, an open economy, energy independence, fed babies, geopolitical stability, affordable food, normalizing relationships in the middle east, and a national border!!!!
You are so simple its comical.
When failing to convince based on sold argument there is always the strategy of throwing up nonsense such as "disgruntled chic", "LOL", "You are so simple its comical..."
"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/29/secret-service-agent-testify-trump-wheel-jan-6" Subpoena Engle and others who were in the vehicle to testify under oath.
Your so-called "disgruntled chic" did not claim to have personally witnessed these events. She personally witnessed enough. She clear stated that she was relaying what she had heard from another source. That by definition is hearsay.
Disappointed with Biden and the Democratic leadership? Stand in line.
It isn’t at all clear that the election wasn’t stolen. Perhaps if the media’s coverage of Trump since 2016 wasn’t so extremely biased there would be less scepticism.
Look, I'm sorry, but if it isn't clear to you, it's because you haven't been paying attention or you get your information from bad sources. I'm not saying this to be mean or to insult you - I want you to understand why you're misinformed.
Nor am I trying to be arrogant. Few people paid more attention to this election than I did, and my expectations of what was going to happen were very well validated by actual events. So if you want to know what actually happened, listen to people who turned out to be well informed. If you want to keep believing something that validates your priors, about Trump or about the mainstream media, keep listening to people who misled you and/or told you what you wanted to hear.
The election has been confirmed in every way imaginable; there have been numerous recounts, audits, and investigations, all of which have found absolutely zero evidence of fraud. There is not a single claim that has withstood scrutiny. A Republican legislator in Michigan who investigated the claims in Antrim County actually found that they were so baseless that he recommended that the state's AG look into prosecuting the people capitalizing on them. Even the absurd "Cyber Ninjas" audit in Arizona confirmed Biden's win, and Pillow Guy's massive summer convention uncovered nothing - only embarrassing Mike Lindell and demonstrating how he was played for a fool by conspiracy theorists.
Trump told you well before the election (just like he did in 2016) that he was going to claim fraud if he lost. Responsible media outlets did everything they could to warn people of the things that Trump was expected to exploit in his entirety predictable claims. The fact that the winner probably wouldn't be known on election night because the high turnout would make the vote take too long to count. The fact that Trump would likely seem to be in the lead on election night because the in-person voting was expected to lean Republican (polling and party affiliation indictated that the mail-in ballots would skew Democratic - something Trump ensured by exhorting his supporters to vote in person), and in most states mail-in ballots couldn't be counted early. Trump was expected to try to exploit this to claim it was stolen overnight - the same crap he tried to pull in 2018 on a smaller scale when he tweeted about having to "go with the election night results". And that's exactly what he did.
The Republicans sent unqualified goons to "monitor" poll sites - what they actually did was intimidate poll workers and file entirely frivolous and baseless affidavits, making various unverifiable and unfalsifiable claims. It was this kind of crap that got Republicans in trouble in the early eighties when they ended up entering into a 35-year consent decree with the Federal government not to send poll watchers or engage in other voter intimidation tactics - conveniently this expired in 2017.
Meanwhile, dishonest politicians like Rand Paul (who knew better) characterized vote submissions from large urban districts, which overwhelmingly skew Democratic, as "late night ballot dumps". Anyone with basic sense can look at a typical purple-state county-by-county electoral map, with its islands of urban blue dotting a sea of rural red, and tell that you should expect Democratic votes to come in clumps.
If you want to blame "media bias" for people's uncertainty, don't blame mainstream media. They responsibly told you what to expect. The fault lies with the outright propaganda from Fox, Newsmax, and OAN, who lied to you about Trump's prospects in this election, then lied again when he lost in order to cover their own asses. They only stopped lying once Dominion Voting Systems filed billion dollar lawsuits against them.
You have been conned by a dishonest and nihilistic political party in thrall to a narcissistic sociopath whose personality cult has taken over the party. They knew who he was in the beginning when they overwhelmingly opposed him, and only threw in with him when politically it was their only option. You can continue to let them deceive you, with the anti-anti-Trump crowd on sites like this giving them the benefit of the doubt because they prioritize battling the excesses of wokeness over the political stability of our country. Or you can wake up to the reality that the far right represents as much of a threat to this country as the far left - and in the short term, a far worse one.
Finally someone NOT willing to be distracted by politics, whataboutism, and those Dems. Ugh! It's important that we have an accounting of what these people have to say. If we are fortunate it will be utilized to prove dereliction of duty, at the very least. He is the number one cheer leader in all of this. He's been grooming those that will let him for years. I find these discussions dishonest when people can't focus on what's right in front of them. He spent over a year telling America if he lost it was because people cheated. He and his goons couldn't find proof of this. Be a grown-up and pass the baton, for God sake.
Hilldawg has spent 5 years claiming Trump was illegitimate, and you stupid lefties cheer. We still have a ways to go to reach your kind of stupid.
My recollection is, Trump was asked during his debate with HRC if he would accept the results of the election. He answered as he should have - he'd need to wait and see how it turned out. To say yes, he'd unconditionally accept the results would be buying a pig in a poke.
I don't recall anything about him grooming his followers for years. If you can point to something specific, please provide a link.
Was it OK for Hillary Clinton to claim she was robbed after the 2016 election? You know she did that, right?
If It's OK for her to do that, what's wrong with the answer Trump gave?
It also is not about truth, it is about harming the GOP, anyone with two functioning brain cells will see and understand that fact. So I understand your lack of comprehension abilities.
I’m not siding with Trump. I don’t like him and I don’t want him to be President again. That being said, Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony is suspect for a variety of reasons and I’m projecting that at least some of it will be proven as false. And the people overseeing this farce have zero credibility based on their repeated bungling and constant lying. We all know that there has not been enough evidence - even 18 months later - with a variety of audits, etc. to credibly prove a successfully rigged election. However, there has been plenty of incompetence as well as illegal chicanery unveiled and we need better oversight in future elections to prevent total loss of faith in the election process.
Repeated bungling and constant lying? By whom - the January 6th committee? Or is this another vapid, undirected slam aimed at the amorphous blob of Democrats/MSM/Twitter comprised of peopleof your ilk don't like?
Because you know who has, verifiably lied, literally tens of thousands of times? (Yes, literally.) Trump.
And no, I'm sorry, but I'm not part of your "we all know" circle of confirmation bias. If you think that the numerous audits, investigations, and recounts, which all verified the official counts and turned up nothing but people making demonstrably fraudulent claims, combined with a complete lack of any verifiable evidence that anything improper happened, (even if you are unaware of how Trump telegraphed his scheme well ahead of time) do not constitute the best approximation of "proof" you're going to get that the election was valid, you live in a bubble of ignorance from which you won't escape until you learn what it means to make reasonable judgements about what's likely true and what isn't.
"Stalinist show trial" is hyperbolic nonsense. "State media" is also hyperbolic nonsense. This is an open proceeding, broadcast in real time, unedited. Anyone can skip the commentary offered by the various TV networks- especially if they're watching C-Span.
The Trump Republicans don't get to characterize the hearings as a partisan witchhunt; the GOP House leadership voluntarily made the decision to decline to participate in the hearings as advocates for Trump's side of the argument (such as it is). That voluntary refusal to participate might as well be a nolo contendre plea. Anyone who isn't committed to Trump's crisis cult realizes this. The bitter-end Trumpites are ignoring or mischaracterizing facts and twisting logic in ways that will only be shown up as more obvious over time.
House Republicans refused to provide members b/c a) two of their own choices were rejected by Pelosi, and b) Pelosi appointed Cheney and Kinzinger - two Republican Trump-haters - to take their place. Surely I don't need to explain to you, it shows a fundamental lack of fairness.
Same question I asked Eric73: When, EVER, has that happened before?
He doesn't have an answer to that. I don't expect you will either, Mascot.
I don't know if it's ever happened before. The Congressional rules governing the proceeding allowed Speaker Pelosi to exert that veto power, so I would not be surprised to find precedents. I also wouldn't be surprised to find that there isn't a precedent, because the situation being investigated has no precedent. But it's your insinuation, so do the legwork to back it up.
Nothing was stopping GOP House leader McCarthy from substituting 2 other Republican House members and offering up a new slate of 5 members to Speaker Pelosi. Instead, he basically ceded the choice of Republicans to her. Even former President Trump is now on the record as being displeased by McCarthy's decision in that regard.
I'm more interested in the testimony itself than the choice of the interrogators. And in that regard, I've found the substance of the June 16 testimony by former VP Pence advisers Greg Jacobs and Judge Michael Lutting as considerably more authoritative and damning than anything else that I've heard thus far.
But I do get why Trump defenders would prefer to ignore the June 16 hearing in favor of focusing exclusively on any procedural squabble or scrap of testimony that they can find elsewhere to exploit, as if it discredited the entire hearing process- because anyone out to discredit Jacobs and Luttig would be in over their heads. I honestly think it's a pity that there aren't any pro-Trump buffoons on the House hearings panel, because I really would have liked to hear them trying to impeach the testimony of Greg Jacobs and Judge Lutting with an adversarial line of questioning.
For that matter, I invite any Trump defender who reads this post to try it. Here's the C-Span link https://www.c-span.org/video/?520944-1/president-trumps-campaign-influence-vice-president-pence
NC... great post, "pure Stalinist" no question, but it is good to see that these people are "out there", we should be aware of the other side, understand just how knavery they become...please.
Hate to see you go, NC Mom. I actually look forward to reading (and usually liking) your comments.
Also have to say I'm surprised by the depth of anger in the comments on this article. Most of us (rightly) deplore the NY Times for firing a great editor who dared to run an op-ed piece it's core readers found objectionable. Yet here many of us are doing the same thing: "firing" Bari (by unsubscribing) because she ran a piece we find objectionable. As the top commenter, who did not cancel his subscription, suggests: if you think the article is full of holes, then tell us where and why. Substack (and Bari, Matt, Glenn, etc.) are great not just as a counterweight to the shrieking nonsense of the MSM, but also because of the thoughtfulness, vigilance, and devotion of its readership to accuracy and truth.
My read of the article was somewhat different than many of the commenters'. My takeaway is that, while the Dems have conducted themselves in their now-customary putrid manner, Trump and his people behaved even more putridly on this than we already knew. (Which is saying something.... Does anyone think the speaker of the Arizona house is not credible?)
Anyway, sorry to see you go, NC mom, and hope to see you in Matt's comments section.
I’m canceling as well.
A shrewd move. Now that you'll no longer be able to comment, you'll be saved the effort of having to defend Donald Trump's indefensible attempt to declare himself Autocrat-In-Chief by trying to arm-twist, cajole, and badger VP Pence into bypassing the Constitution. You must realize that lackeying for Trump is a task that's only going to get more difficult from here on out.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5020277/judge-luttig-warns-president-trump-allies-clear-present-danger-american-democracy
Have you ever been to the USSR to speak with authority on what Stalinist trials were? Do you know what real torture is?
My father was arrested when he was a student. His crime? "Failing to avert his gaze when the presidential limousine passed."
LOL!!! The strawman that lies at the foundation of why stupid humans repeat the same mistakes stupid humans before them made - the ridiculous belief that we can't learn lessons from history because we weren't "actually there" is exactly why "never again" never actually happens. Your argument is right up there with all the times people swore "it's different this time" when it never really is.
Histrionic nonsense.
The analogy to Stalinist show trials fails on the face of the facts. It's plainly ridiculous, to anyone who hasn't allowed their partisanship to override widely acknowledged history.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Common Sense was a place for sensible rationale readers - those that can't stand wokeness - but also not in thrall of Q-Anon and the cult of Trump. Those willing to hear a variety of opinions. Unfortunately, because Bari Weiss was so effective against the left, she has attracted brainwashed cultists such as yourself that would normally hang out on 4Chan and Breitbart. Bye Bye!
lot s of hate there honey...pigment
I am unsubscribing now. If this is what these contributors are going to offer then I have no time for it. To be clear, I welcome opposing views and opinions (they are critical to free speech and democracy) but I draw the line at fawning over show trials orchestrated by the party in power and that deny due process and cross examination to the accused (whoever that may be). I also have no issue with a full transparent hearing on 1/6. Let’s find out what really happened (eg, what role Nancy Pelosi and others played in denying the requested security at the Capitol and who the agitators were who were repeatedly caught on video). Why are they refusing to show the 1000s of hours of security camera footage?
More broadly, and as stated above, I’m disappointed that a piece like this was given the green-light given all of the blatant lies that have been force fed to us by the MSM for years only to be debunked repeatedly. Just yesterday we learned that the 1/6 committee’s star witness (who spewed nothing but unchallenged hearsay testimony) is being refuted by the secret service members who were actually present. Enough!
If you think this piece was "fawning" then you're full of shit about "welcoming opposing views and opinions"
"When I first learned that the January 6 Committee was planning to air its hearings on primetime, I was deeply skeptical. The gross spectacle of that day wasn’t some secret scandal that, like Watergate, required deep reporting to uncover the truth. "
"I could think of few things less urgent than actions committed a year and a half ago by a president who no longer holds public office at a time when so many are making agonizing decisions like whether to buy meat for dinner or use the money for gas and settle for rice and beans instead. "
"For months now, I’ve been pointing out how self-indulgent it was for these politicians to demand that we endlessly empathize with the trauma they suffered on January 6 because of the danger posed by a riotous mob—while they refuse to do anything about the life-threatening danger that their constituents have learned to live with."
"It also felt wrong to me that there were no Trump supporters on the committee to cross-examine witnesses, and I was deeply put off by the highly produced nature of the spectacle, which seemed designed to electrify a moribund base. "
"I’m still not convinced that January 6 was an insurrection. It still seems to me that, beyond a handful of extremists, January 6 was a riot that got out of hand, and that a selfish President Trump hoped he might profit from the chaos."
"I’m also not convinced that his actions on January 6, however heinous, are enough to erase Trump’s policy legacy"
"I still feel sickened by the fact that many of these politicians tweeting endlessly about that day are not lifting a finger to help their own constituents, who are living daily with the kind of chaos and violence they supposedly abhor."
It’s the classic sh*t sandwich. Positive comments on both ends with the real message in the middle. So maybe not fawning, but apparently taking anything the hearings say hook line and sinker.
Batya seems pretty naive to me and this article is very short on questioning what is said at the hearings. We are in a post truth world where people routinely lie for what they perceive as the greater good. I would expect more skepticism from someone who writes here.
Batya wrote a book called How Woke Media is Undermining Our Democracy, so I wouldn't exactly call her naive.
Do you expect more skepticism, or do you expect a particular point of view to be articulated here and are disappointed you didn't get it?
I find it gob-smacking the number of people who are wailing in agony over how the site has supposedly been captured by the left when I have been fretting over the exact opposite. The fact that this site routinely blasts the MSM for every mistake and misperception yet ignores the outright fabrications on Fox News/Newsmax/OAN. The fact that it has no problem calling out cultural authoritarians on the left while disregarding political authoritarians on the right. The fact that with a disgraced president who tried to overturn our constitutional order threatening to do so again and a Republican party enabling the installment of election deniers in key positions of state authority, this site has had almost nothing to say about this clear threat to our Republic and spends more time defending the Canadian trucker convoy.
This site publishes an anti-Trump article once in a blue moon and has people up in arms threatening to cancel their subscriptions over it. The most critical post has more likes than the article itself. That says something about the actual audience by whom this site has been captured.
The entire D.C. sideshow seems to be paid cover for the continued looting, of not just the hard earned treasure of everyday Americans, but a direct assault on the culture and moral center of their lives. A muddling of reason and dialogue, an obfuscation and twisting of the facts purposefully intended to prevent the discussion and creation of real solutions.
I'm a fan of Mrs. Ungar-Sargon and her work on how "woke" is compromising media. I think some of the negative reaction here is our personal disgust at being continually ping-ponged by the corrupt MSM/Democratic party machine. Experiencing the Presidency and America hostage to the transparent Russia Gate lie followed by the exploitation of 1/6 to further evade dealing with the consequential damaging realities Americans are suffering as the result of D.C. ineptitude and graft is a serious trigger in itself. Mrs. Ungar-Sargon somehow pulled it.
In actuality Trump, the 1/6 hearings and MSM/"woke" are only symptoms of the diseased utopian pathology being utilized by totalitarian finance to rationalize their further imposition of a big tech/surveillance state/corporatist CCP style feudalism. This entire airball is simply the new version of the shining object in the path of the monkey, give me free labor, personal exploitation of resources while the consequences of my actions destroy the world and, I'm gonna get away with it. It's no different than Ludlow, Colorado or Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Just my opinion, Miles. Calm down. Batya’s “mind has been changed” by this sham political theater so I take that as tacit support for their “findings”. I think that is pretty naive on Batya’s part but that is her opinion and she is entitled to it…and I am entitled to mine.
You're entitled to your opinion; you're not entitled to both be triggered by differing opinions (have no time for it, draw the line, disappointed it was published, etc.) while at the same time patting yourself on the back for welcoming disagreement. Pick one or the other.
And you are entitled to question her reasoning ability. Just because someone changes their mind about something doesn't mean they are right. They just changed their mind.
I look at this as a way of gaining cred with Conservatives. It doesn't work when all you have are weak testimony examples from a sham proceeding.
"I draw the line at fawning over show trials orchestrated by the party in power"
Did you call the Benghazi hearings (all of them) a show trial, too? Or was that show trial OK because Republicans ran it?
"and that deny due process and cross examination to the accused (whoever that may be)."
What denial of due process? The accused, Donald Trump, is welcome to testify to the J6 committee, whenever he wants. He only has to show up and answer questions under oath. Whether he does is entirely on him, not the committee.
Republicans had their chance to staff the J6 committee with intelligent members. McCarthy chose Jim Jordan and other buffoons. When Pelosi correctly objected, McCarthy said, "Then I appoint no one, you're on your own." Pelosi chose two Republicans and launched the investigation. McCarthy fucked his own party with his refusal to take this committee seriously.
"we learned that the 1/6 committee’s star witness (who spewed nothing but unchallenged hearsay testimony) is being refuted by the secret service members who were actually present."
First, it was not hearsay. She accurately reported what she was told by the Secret Service team and/or the Chief of Staff, and said so right up front: "This is what they told me." She did not say she witnessed the actions, she said she was told about it by the Secret Service. Second, her testimony has not been "refuted" until the agents and Mark Meadows appear before the J6 committee and testify under oath as to their version of events. Which means the committee will be able to ask, "If Trump did not grab for the steering wheel or assault the agent, why did you tell her he did? Are you lying to us now or were you lying to her then?"
Finally, this is not a courtroom, it's a congressional hearing. The rules of courtrooms do not apply, just like they didn't in the Benghazi hearings. Condemn both or neither, you can't pick and choose.
there are certainly similarly to the Benghazi hearings and these hearings, I paid very little attention to either. Here are a couple of major distinctions, please correct me if I am wrong:
1) Benghazi hearings did not prohibit the dems from choosing who would sit on the committee unlike these hearings
2) During Benghazi hearings, Dems controlled the presidency and DOJ, so there was no real way to do the hearings besides congressionally (unlike today when the Dems control Presidency and DOJ, DOJ currently doing prosecutions on this subject matter)
Exactly. And the Benghazi disaster needed hearings. An Ambassador and other American officials were assassinated. And the Secretary of State had refused repeated requests from the Ambassador for added security over the previous six months. That needed a Congressional hearing to find out how this could have happened.
"...She accurately reported what she was told . . ." is the very definition of hearsay - an out of court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
She testified about what SHE was told directly. That makes it not hearsay. If the agents want to be sworn in and testify as to what they said, they can, and it wouldn't be hearsay either.
In any case, it doesn't matter. This is not a criminal or court proceeding, it's a congressional committee hearing.
Fundamental fairness always applies. This is an inquisition, meaning that it combines the roles of investigator, prosecutor and judge into one. The Dems had the opportunity to make it at least appear to be a fair and balanced proceeding and didn't take it. After that, everything it does is tainted. They knew that, but did it anyway, a fact that strongly suggests they didn't and don't care about anything but their preferred outcome. If you think any sort of proceeding in which only one side gets to present witnesses, cross-examine, offer evidence, etc. is fair, I strongly suggest you think again.
"The Dems had the opportunity to make it at least appear to be a fair and balanced proceeding and didn't take it."
To the contrary: Democrats did this by the fairness book. This committee contains two powerful Republican congresspeople, one of whom is co-chair of the committee: Liz Cheney, one of the hardest-right Republicans in the nation, who voted with Donald Trump 93 percent of the time in his four years in office. If this were as "one-sided" as you claim, there would be zero Republicans on the committee. Instead, Democrats AND Republicans are asking questions, offering evidence, and cross-examining witnesses without showboating.
You would have preferred Jim Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene? They would have made this a clown show, not the fair examination of who did what when that it is.
I strongly suggest you rewatch the Benghazi hearings if you want an example of an inquisitional witch hunt.
Yes....exactly. Extra emphasis on "MSM is part of the DNC". That is the biggest shame/crime of all.
I would add the priority of out elite and media class is disconnected from reality. IN other news the greatest human rights atrocity in our life time occurred at the border, but oh wells!
I will also not renew my subscription is Weiss keeps including writers who accept and believe the hearings are fair and reasonable when even the democrats admitted to staging and producing the televised event. Not political hearing but event to stop Trump becoming President again. Especially after this Biden administration which Hunter Biden gave us substantiated proof of his entire family’s corruption and Biden’s allowing so far over 2 million illegals and more growing by the day, gas prices at these high levels due to Biden shutting down the pipeline and stopping domestic production Donald J Trump is the only one to turn this around. Yes. He really does need to save America. This J6 circus thinks we can’t think and reason for ourselves. If this forum continues to publish idiots who believe the J6 lies presented I will not continue to support or read it. Very disappointing I really thought Weiss was smarter than this. I liked the fact I did not agree with her on everything it this article just wasted my time and disgusted me enough to waste more time on this response.
Read your entire comment, but really want to draw attention to the fact that we have pretty good evidence and Intel that our sitting president has committed treason while he was the VP and perhaps is still committing treason. His son was clearly engaged in illegal or unethical acts while he was VP and yet, here we are watching the LEFT orchestrate their sham North Korean Style Propaganda show for everyone to see. They clearly think little of the American people and perhaps rightly so.
I agree with all except the perhaps rightly so.
Lily...gotta hear both sides, that was not BW. Me, i am glad to hear Ungars is Out There...whom ever he/she is.
When the world finds out, clean air makes the world Warmer, i want to know the Real denouncers of Truth...thanks
Ungar-Sargon is not a left wing shill, she’s a balanced journalist in general, and one of the few I’ve come to trust even if I don’t always agree with her.
I think she’s had a rush to judgment here, but she shouldn’t be completely discounted for that. Only chastised perhaps to hold off and dig deeper.
She did not say anything of significance except there has been no evidence that President Trump or his team didanything to cause the Jan. 6 Capitol incident. Everything else is piling on Orange Man Bad.
She said this and it's not even true: "As the rioters at the capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and erected a gallows outside the Capitol, President Trump said “Mike deserves it,” according to Tuesday’s testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. "
Cheney claimed that as a Trump quote, but nothing in Hutchinson's testimony stated that as a Trump quote. Rather she paraphrased Meadows saying "You heard him, he thinks Mike deserves it", and the "it" is undefined - could be deserving to be called out by the mob in general for not doing the goofy override Trump wanted, or deserving hanging.
Proof at 2:00 of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3mQVZdpFhM
Anyway, if Ungar-S is swayed by things she "learned" that aren't even true, we don't need to waste much time with this article or her viewpoint here.
Sorry, when someone writes a piece of crap like this, I disregard them. Left, Right, or Center. My bandwidth is too small to be reading people who I don't think are smarter than I am. My judgement as this author is a sucker. So buh-bye!
I like this approach. Fair.
I find this comment about the article being bullshit and the fact that Bari would dare to run something that disagrees with your "bias" means you would and no doubt will unsubscribe. I thought I had finally "found my crowd" - those who could listen to others with whom they disagreed in the odd chance that one could learn something and get out of ones owns balloons and debate with respect and civility ,and a little humility
alas, now it seems, that some of the commentators on Common Sense have lost theirs. Instead, there is the same assuredness that I and I alone have the TRUTH and anything that goes against MY truth is not worth $5.00 a month.
Not a whole lot different from the Tucker Carlson crowd.
I am one of "Tucker Carlson crowd." How can we fight the "cancel culture" if we fall prey to the same type of thinking? Bari Weiss has created a platform for dialogue. Don't abandon her. She is a strong centrist. We need centrists, do we not?
If you think Batya's article is accurate at all then tell us who had an AR-15 on January 6 at the capital.
You do realize that Hutchinson was not with Trump on Jan. 6 and that her entire testimony about what Trump supposedly said is hearsay, don't you?
My wife is progressive and listened to the hearings yesterday. We had a good talk about the nature of Hutchinson’s testimony as evidence. She says that she heard a number of things; the truth or falsity of any assertions she heard should be given minimal weight; it is weak as hearsay evidence. The fact that she HEARD these items IS evidence that she heard them. She should have been cross examined to possibly discredit her testimony (aka impeach her testimony). Then we can call as witnesses the people from heard she heard these comments to see what they observed. At some point, we get to the people who were with the president.
As to the statement that there were people armed with AR-15s, the truth of falsity of that assertion is not important, she can testify that she heard warnings to that extent. Once again, we need to call as witnesses the people who supposedly made these statements to see what they remember saying and what they knew at the time.
The committee members knew that Hutchinson had only hearsay testimony to give and they knew what she would say. That is why they called her. She would create inflammatory new rumors that credulous "journalists" like Batya and Bari would spread like wild fire without ever considering their validity.
The committee's only reason for existing is to smear Trump, not to get at the truth.
Dean...nice put...covers
You're such a hypocrite. "I thought I had finally "found my crowd" - those who could listen to others with whom they disagreed..." We've written things you disagree with, so now we're awful.
"... Not a whole lot different from the Tucker Carlson crowd..." You're all peace, love, brotherhood, and tolerance. Except for those haters/racists/Nazis in the Tucker Carlson crowd. Don't kid yourself. You hate us. It's not enough we tolerate that which we don't like. We have to embrace it. If we don't think males should participate in women's sports, we hate trans people, and we're evil. Isn't that right? It's you who are the hater. You hate us.
You're the ones throwing temper tantrums because Bari posted an article critical of your orange messiah.
You say those taking umbrage with this article are doing so because it's critical of the "orange messiah"? Just about ALL of the comments I've read that are annoyed by the essay relate to the sham investigation with no defense and the age old (now) hook line and sinker gullibility of those who loathe the "orange messiah". Pelosi orchestrated the make up of the committee, excluding the two R congressmen who would have questioned the witnesses from an opposing viewpoint. Only you have shown an infatuation with Trump in these comments. It would serve you to reread the comments to show your bias, Miles.
What a joke. You actually are the one prejudging this. You insult anyone questioning this as a Trump stooge. Well, the opposite can be true too. I think you only like the hearings because you are getting all the “Orange Man Bad” porn that you crave.
See how that works? If you think it’s unfair then tough sh*t
No they are disagreeing with the writer.
Agree 100%. I am here to see different opinions. Calling this article a BS and unsubscribing show to me that there are tons of people that want to hear what they want to hear. I do not share all opinions presented in Common Sense, but I like that they are exposed here.
rschul
i agree
So I disagree with Batya. So what. I am not going to unsubscribe. I learn more from people I disagree with; it helps me understand what I believe in. Bari puts out more content than Taibbi and Greenwald combined. I will discontinue my subscriptions to them before I discontinue my subscription to Bari.
Does it bother you at all that some of these different opinions are falsehoods? Hutchinson's testimony about Trump assaulting his secret service detail and trying to grab the steering wheel of his limo has already been shown to be false (NBC reported it). And her testimony is all hearsay. We'll probably find out that more of what she told the committee is false. For example no one had an AR-15 near the capital on Jan. 6, but it makes for a good smear.
Nope. From Batya's article I know how Hutchinson testified. From the other article I can get the information how these testimonies were verified.
Well, did you stop watching Tucker Carlson when he interviewed left-wing people like Glenn Greenwald and Tulsi Gabbard on his program?
People like you are so effing condescending. You act like you know what people are thinking. It's a common thread I'm seeing of the people who don't like the criticism.
Maybe think about why the criticism is there. From a non-condescending I know better standpoint.
so you have no idea who i am or what i think other than a comment I made - and you - knowing who i am from your better standpoint have judged me as condescending. It wasn't the criticsm i minded - it was the way it was offered . but never mind. You go your way and I'll go mine.
So I don’t know you or how you think, but you know everyone else. Introspection….look into it.
I agree with you. I joined a few substack communities in the first place because of my great concern about gaslighting children and turning society upside down over Gender Ideology, apparently started by the Mengeles like Dr. John Money. I'll stick around awhile for anything more Bari might post regarding schools, etc. but otherwise I enjoy the reader comments far more than most articles. For that reason, I hope some of ya do stick around. - LM
Although Common Sense has been my heretofore favorite publication, I too am cancelling because of this article and a couple of other recent ones. Bari is outsourcing too much and I don’t know why she’s choosing authors like this one, but it’s not a good sign. I don’t know what I’ll find to replace this site (and the intelligent comments made by the readers- my favorite part). Any suggestions are welcome.
This doesn't exactly answer the question about another publication but I think Victor Davis Hanson is a very clear thinker. I just read a great piece by him:
"VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Cry-Baby Leftist Mind"
Dailycaller.com/2022/06/30/victor-davis-hanson-cry-baby-leftist-mind-supreme-court/
"What would the Left do if after 2022 midterms a Republican majority Congress emulated its own infantile tantrums?
Imagine new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., tearing up a President Joe Biden State of Union address on live television."
Great piece. Thank you!
P.S. the incessant ads that one has to scroll past in order to read it are annoying, but VDH is worth it.
You are welcome! It looks like you can avoid ads by reading his articles on his own website.
Remember all those “Resistance” bumper stickers people put on their cars in 2016?
https://victorhanson.com/who-are-the-real-insurrectionists-2/
See: https://victorhanson.com/
And today's piece:
"Who Are the Real Insurrectionists?
Leave a Comment / July 4, 2022
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness"
https://victorhanson.com/who-are-the-real-insurrectionists-2/
The Left's infantile tantrums. Right. Like, for instance, incessantly crying over losing an Election and becoming the first president to not honor a peaceful transition of power.
Go back and look at what a complete embarrassment Trump made of that State of the Union Address. You'll see why Pelosi tore up her copy.
Victor Davis Hanson is another joke Flight-93 "conservative", who used to be respected among conservatives and now has more sensible Republicans wondering if he ever wasn't a loony authoritarian. You'll find plenty of those at "American Greatness", along with lots of thinly veiled racism (or not so thinly veiled, like the infamous"Cuck Elegy"). Put simply, AG is one of those sites that makes it that much more difficult to argue that white supremacy isn't experiencing a resurgence.
If all you want is criticism of the left, there are plenty of people and sites that will gladly lead you down a right-wing rabbit hole. They'll happily cater to the illusion that Donald Trump is just a wrongly maligned, misunderstood guy hated by the left simply because he flouts their pieties.
Or you could stick with a site that up until now you trusted to give it to you straight - until they told you something you didn't want to hear.
So you won't tolerate someone who has been a staunch defender of Republicans and critic of Democrats giving you her honest opinion of the Jan 6th hearings? Do you really just want a site that criticizes only the left and otherwise engages in apologism on the right? That certainly isn't what I signed up for.
No, I don’t. But this piece was sloppy. Not worthy of what I previously considered to be a superior journalistic site. As someone else commented, I want to read pieces by those who are “smarter” (more informed) than I am. I want to learn something from every piece. That didn’t happen here. It’s a slippery slope, and I’m concerned that this piece exhibits the beginnings of a descent into ordinariness.
You are little different than the cancel culture wokesters. In many ways worse- as you are so brazenly hypocritical. If you leave, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Orange man cultists are possibly the only thing worse than cancel culture CRT lefties.
Hard to recommend a replacement substack Aimee. Unfortunately I'm a critic. It's hard to find a writer that sooner or later doesn't disappoint me.
For different reasons, I'm not renewing w/ Alex Berenson.
I like what Glen Greenwald writes, but think he can be a bit wordy, and slow to get to his point.
Robert Malone has been pretty level-headed and steady. He's targeting a different audience than Bari Weiss. Lately some of his stuff has been highly technical, and difficult for me to follow. But that's b/c of MY limitations. That aside, I can't really find anything about him to criticize.
My problem with Glenn Greenwald is that there can be several weeks where there is no new content. The same with Matt Taibbi. At least Bari has regular content every week. I might drop Greenwald and Taibbi and pick another writer in their place.
I'm a critic about almost everything, so this is FWIW.
Don't disagree w/ you about Greenwald's content. In addition, I wish he would sharpen up his writing. He has good ideas and observations, but when he puts them down in print or does a podcast, he's wordy. Wish he would be a little more respectful of his audience's time.
When I'm judging what content to give my time to, second thing I look at, after the title (and short summary if available), is how much time will it require. If more than I want to give, I go on to the next thing.
For someone like him, I recommend "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. The whole thrust of the book is for writers to get rid of excess verbiage that adds no value.
Aimee...please stay aboard, give it time, BW must put out another side at times, just to give a balance/openness...thanks
Okay… will do. Thank you.
Evil... got to consider, just because we get this goop from Ungers, does not show BW to be in agreement, it is helpful to see the enemy...grateful.
Wow...bari...expected better...
I didn’t like the auto renew feature either and posted something about it. I most likely would have renewed but it would have been nice if it was my decision.
You have a good point and I have questioned that too - however my point is just that if some security measure was mandated for the election it should have been followed - and no one seems to care that it wasn’t
He is a she. I've seen her on Tucker Carlson.
Batya is a woman, not a "he".
Rick did a great job. While I agree with the early and largely negative sentiments expressed regarding the content here in the comments, I appreciated this piece and think Common Sense subscribers should consider Bari's running a business.
I didn't watch the "hearings," having read Sharyl Attkisson's journalism documenting the literal mountain of lies spewed out of the left and their sycophant accomplices in the legacy media, the summary was useful to me. I took a lot of it with a grain of salt.
Point being, the author wrote well and expressed a legitimate point of view, giving the commenters fodder for debate. Bari is looking for smart journalists to build her business, they won't all be fully aware of the broader situation. Most people are not.
As usual, I learn as much from the comments as I do the piece sometimes. Case in point today: look at Brad Casalvieri's background on Hucthinson, Michelle Styles background on our founders understanding of the fall of Rome and the relevance of their wisdom today, or my favorite, Daviid Lawrence Jorling's background on the western broadcast of ABC news calling out the likely fraud of some of Hucthinson's comments.
Back to Bari and her business, this author lacked some important context - okay, see above dear author. More importantly, Bari's woo'ing democrats, hoping to share facts that will influence their point of view and quite literally save our country and protect our children's future. So, for the super negative commenters, not Naomi, remember we are here to support and improve Common Sense. We can't make this an echo chamber, she and we, need to woo.
I don’t want an echo chamber, either, which is why this publication is so important for me. I’ve read many articles from this author before that were excellent, so even if this one doesn’t hit the mark I wouldn’t want to miss out in the future. I haven’t read her book about how woke media is destroying democracy, but I would agree with that statement alone.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I admit I love the comments section as much or more than I do the actual newsletter. There are more than just a few insightful people here who are willing to share their take in a measured manner. I never come away from Common Sense without some additional knowledge or perspective. That is a gift that far exceeds the price of my subscription. This newsletter and it’s readers are a terrific foil for the idea that civility and wisdom are dead.
Exactly. I subscribed because I value the voices of sanity and common sense. I also wanted to participate in the discussion. I love reading comments and learning what others think and why and in this setting it's mostly civil and thoughtful and I appreciate that as well. I always learn something new. Isn't that what LIFE is about, learning and growing together?
Expressed a point of view...not sure how legitimate it is...
I think we all know Bari's leanings but I give her credit for allowing the freedom to offer unbridled comment. To her discredit, the commenters are often more illuminating the the authors she publishes. It' bothers me too that we have to go elsewhere to read what they did to Navarro and others. Are you listening Bari? How about giving Navarro some air time?
Bari's contributors nearly all come from the Left side of the political spectrum. We have some mighty fine writers on the right side as well but they are not represented on Common Sense.
I would say that Bari is a centrist. For instance, I’m to Bari’s left on abortion. (Yup, deal with it.) Her choice of Mike Pompeo and Condoleezza Wright as interviewees I consider right-wing (I’m not criticizing these choices, just pointing them out). She defended the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, which I thought was justified, and it put her at odds with the left. She defends Abigail Shrier’s work on the trans issue and shares Common Sense with Shrier to give her articles a wider audience, even though Shrier has a Substack of her own. She published Katie Herzog on the trans ideological corruption of science and medicine and the use of cancellation to destroy the careers of doctors who insist that the sexual binary is real. (Gender-critical thought is deemed by the left to be irrevocably right-wing.) She also gave her podcast to a defense of the Central Park Karen in an excellent interview with black conservative Kmele Foster.
I could go on and on. I guess my point is that I, a life-long liberal who have extricated myself from the censorious, ideologically compromised left side of the aisle, whatever that even means anymore, appreciate Bari’s unclassifiable mixture of insights and topics. I often do not agree with her. I often find Nellie Bowles’ TGIF segments to be superficial and poorly researched, including her annoying use of the pronoun “she” to describe Lia Thomas. And for the record, I am disappointed regarding this piece by Ungar-Sargon. I shook my head while reading it and thought, no, just no, you have drunk then Kool-Aid, my friend, take a chill pill and start over. But OK, whatever.
I will continue to support Bari. She is honorable, hard working, articulate, very bright, a genuine seeker of the truth, with a deep respect for the First Amendment. Her choices are going to piss me off sometimes. This is normal. I cherish her work because I learn things, and sometimes I even agree with her.
I’m probably to the right of Bari on nearly every issue, which I’m guessing makes me far to the right of you, Beeswax, on nearly every issue. But I agree wholeheartedly with ever word of your last paragraph.
*every
Correction: Condoleezza Rice.
I would like to encourage all the regulars here to continue their subscriptions. We cannot get emotional about a POS article, as we are all here to discuss things. I'm taking it month-by-month.
Having said that, I will say to Bari: if you want to continue to be taken seriously by the people who put you here, start publishing some work by conservatives. Anything short of that, and you are open to the charge of hypocrisy. You, in fact, have NOT shown balance in your choice of material
I agree there is no balance in the selection of writers and articles. The balance seems to come from the readers who then post commentary. It has been clear to me for a while now that the majority of the posters on these threads are conservatives. I often find the commentaries more interesting and informative than the piece that sparked all the discussion. That is certainly true in this case where the instigating article is demonstrably inferior in many ways, including facts.
This is exactly why I comment frequently.
"I would like to encourage all the regulars here to continue their subscriptions"
I second that, unless she ignores your sage advice.
Hopefully Bari didn't publish this with the hope of running off the more conservative commenters. In her previous post there were some comments that Bari's comments space was being overtaken by 'right-wingers.'
Conservatives in addition to David French.
David French shouldn't be published anywhere on Earth...
It’s Common Sense from the left side of the spectrum. We have National Review for the mostly sane right side. Taken together they present a possible normal dialogue that gets lost in the WP/NYT/CNN/MSNBC/FOX interpretation of political dialogue.
I have to disagree on national review. They sold out a long time ago. Andy McCarthy who I really liked, had a terrible article on Jan 6. I know David French is not there anymore, but he is the problem with "conservatism" iMO. He is brilliant but he is more consumed with the process than the results. I feel he would rather lose gracefully and hold his head up high on principal, then realize that human nature is not always logical and cut and dried.
You are correct and that is why I said “mostly” sane. They definitely go off the deep end sometimes.
Hey, hey, hey, please pull Fox out of there. Sure you have Cavuto and Baier, and Geraldo but there is also Tucker Carlson. He's worth all of Fox.
Agreed. I've read some really good columns by Kira Davis. She did a piece on kids and the gender confusion push that summed up its inherent problems very well.
How about Navarro testifying under oath?
He's been indicted. Does he have any choice?
Everyone has a choice. My comment was responding to the suggestion that Navarro publish something.
Do you imagine that DOJ would not withdraw the indictment if he agreed to honor the subpoena and testify before the committee? Maybe he’s weighing the option of a pardon should there be a Republican President in 2024. Hard to say.
"Everyone has a choice".
And my guess is he'll have plenty to say, after being forced to spend a half million dollars on lawyers. That's what this all really about. It's what government inquisitors do to punish and financially ruin anyone in their sights. Just ask General Flynn who was coerced by the Mueller inquisitors into pleading guilty to a non-crime so he and his family would not become destitute. Navarro had the integrity and balls to give the middle finger to all the stooges running Pelosi’s show trial. If the JustUs Dept. ever puts him on a real trial my bet is the press won’t even cover it because he’ll expose facts they don’t want to hear.
That is what taking the 5th is for and I would wager his lawyer has so advised.
When we the American people understand we are being serially abused by our government. The January 6 committee is like the very concept of January 6 itself a total abusive scam. Arrests of Navarro and Eastman are, like everything else originating in the Biden administration, at total embarrassment. Yes, Donald Trump may not be our favorite person but yes, he did a far better job than many of the other Presidents of our lifetimes. It is about the Constitution! Elect constitutionalists and those who have the adequate brain power to interpret it correctly.
A group of people stormed the U.S. capitol and were, for the most part, out of control for quite awhile. It is COMPLETELY normal that this would be investigated. Kevin McCarthy choosing to not have any Trump supporters on the committee is on him.
WTF are you talking about? Kevin McCarthy was allowed to have the same number of Rs as Ds on the committee and his choices were rejected by Pelosi. This is a joke and a sham and everyone should understand that this is not how a government representative of the people should work.
Two of McCarthy's 5 choices were rejected by Speaker Pelosi, who was apparently within bounds in exercising the power to do so. Not all of them, the way you're making it sound. And nothing was stopping McCarthy from picking two different choices and re-submitting the GOP slate. But McCarthy realized at that point what a gift that Pelosi had given him, by providing him with a pretext to boycott the hearings.
I think Pelosi blew it, personally. It would have been much more entertaining for many of us to hear Greg Jacobs and Michael Luttig responding to hostile questioning from the Trump contingent on June 16. https://www.c-span.org/video/?520944-1/president-trumps-campaign-influence-vice-president-pence (with transcript, although the video is much funnier)
Seems to me we the American people are being royally played. I understand there are two sides here but due to the monstrous, despicable games being played by the “Democrats” they have destroyed any and all possible credibility they may have once possessed.
Here is a report on a very small example:
https://youtu.be/PKjSE1g7NrI
I didn't say anything about McCarthy, lol. Pelosi is a joke of a wasted person and should not be representing we the people... The Jan 6 committee is a joke. No it certainly is not how a government by and for we the people should work.
KW Norton, I was responding to Scott after his pathetic, lame, joke of a response to you.
Kevin McCarthy appointed 5 members who are Republicans, which is what the rules for the committee required. Your attack is on Speaker Pelosi who illegally rejected his appointments.
Also, when was there a committee to investigate the riots that disrupted the hearings for Justice Kavanaugh for several days? That was certainly worse than January 6.
Sorry, but my attack is on exactly what I said. You are free to not agree.
Rfhirsch is also responding to Scott, not to you.
two things:
1) DOJ has been investigating, so there really isn't a need for the Dems in Congress to do it, and with Schiff's record on these hearings, how can there be any real trust
2) Pelosi rejected McCarthy's appointments....
Unless I’m mistaken, Pelosi only rejected two of the five: Jordan who was involved directly in some of the matters under investigation and Banks who said he would use the hearings to “prove” the election was stolen. So Jordan has a rather clear conflict of interest and Banks rejected the committee’s limited scope. McCarthy then pulled the other three nine of whom had no similar issues and so now we are where we are.
Even Trump now says McCarthy was wrong in not placing GOP members on the committee - which suggests that he recognizes how damaging some of the testimony against him has been. Of course, his reason was that the members would leak everything to his team in advance which is hardly a reassuring expectation.
In my view, Trump has irrevocably damaged his legacy which, at some in the future, would have focused on the good things he accomplished and for which his Administration was never given credit in real time. Truman, Hoover and others went from very much out of favor to higher favorability in later years. For all his vaunted gut instincts, Trump might have traded what he saw as a short term gain for long term opprobrium. Everyone made choices but in this case, Trump might have been better served had he listened to his advisors and told the Giulianis, Eastmans and Clarks “you’re fired.”
Funny thing is Adam Kinzinger will lose his seat in November because of redistricting and Liz Cheney will lose it because she's a loser. And they hated Trump so know one believes they represent an opposing POV. You can obfuscate all day long and it doesn't change what Pelosi did to change the committee and it's ultimate conclusion. But like with everything the Dems do, this will backfire. They always overplay their hand.
Anytime trust is broken in a relationship it cannot work well. The American people's trust with this government is increasingly broken. Both political parties are corrupt although there is some hope of current governors who have gained some impressive ground and seem to understand more about the Constitution.
C'mon Scott, that would be a fair criticism of McCarthy if it was accurate, but it's a lie.
The GOP appointed reps to be on the J6 committee but they were 'rejected' by Pelosi. Fyi, this is the first time in the history of a Congressional hearing that one side wasn't even allowed to choose who represented them.
You good with that?
It is completely normal that it is investigated. It is completely outrageous that people are spending a year + in jail awaiting trial on glorified misdemeanor/trespassing charges while thousands of people who participated in far more violent riots in other cities are getting off lightly (many with minimal pre-trial imprisonment).
People who were violent on Jan 6 deserve to be treated like violent criminals and subject to normal pre-trial detention. But many of the cases we are hearing about are outrageous.
Except for the fact this committee is a Kkangaroo court worthy of a third-world dictatorship. What is and was out of control were not a bunch of renegade citizens but an entire United States government in league with the World Economic Forum. the Bilderberg Group and the Biden Crime family. (To mention a few.)
100% on all accounts. It's the Salem Witch Trials all over again. It may have been interesting with the balance of McCarthy's nominations to the committee, but without that it is a step below Kabuki Theater. I would rather watch zero gravity sumo wrestling.
To: Naomi, Evil Incarnate, NCmom, R. Bosshardt, etc,
For all who think this is just a "show trial", have you listened to the testimony? Based on the various postings I think that you don't like what you hear.
You want to get to the truth?
Call your elected representatives and demand a special prosecutor (It happened during the Clinton Administration - investigation of Vince Foster's death, Whitewater, and for blowjobs in the Oval Office). This special prosecutor has the power to subpoena and not simply "invite" testimony.
I want to hear directly, under oath, from Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump, the Secret Service, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Michael Flynn (who took the Fifth), and yes Donald Trump. The list could go on. Let there be cross-examination.
I want to know under threat of perjury:
Did John Eastman speak with White House Counsel regarding a Presidential Pardon. Yes or No?
Did Mark Meadows ask for a Presidential Pardon? Yes or No.
Did Donald Trump, while riding in the Beast, attempt to crab the steering wheel and lunge towards one of his Secret Service detail? Yes or No.
Did Donald Trump accrue $250 million dollars in donations for a fund that never existed? Yes or No.
Did the Capital Police refuse the presence of the National Guard and who is responsible? Yes or No. The Constitution of the United States is very clear on the role of the Executive Branch in calling upon State Militias in a time of crisis.
This is a very messy situation and given the polarization in this country very difficult to manage; however, there are processes to do this. You may think the current proceedings are a kangaroo court; however, did any members of the GOP agree to be represented apart from Liz Cheney?
Trials have both a prosecution and a defense.
A one sided trial is North Korean Style Propaganda.
A kangaroo court is one political side running the show. The January 6 Committee is a political ploy by the “Democrats” and more particularly a political ploy to distract from the evil being perpetrated by the Biden Crime Family and associates. The American people understand this.
Kevin McCarthy abrogated any adult responsibility to bring "balance" to these proceedings. Rather like a petulant child he refused to play know full well that "the base" would see his behavior as principled as opposed to cynical.
Kennedy Crime Family
Nixon Crime Family
Bush Crime Family
Reagan Crime Family
Obama Crime Family
Clinton Crime Family
Trump Crime Family
What is the difference?
Did I say there was one? Exactly.
On this we can agree.
Exactly.
To Rick -
When Adam Schiff lies about Trump for years and then sits on a Trump Investigation Committee, I would not waste a single moment giving him a platform to lie to me.
They don't simply lack credibility, they're proven Disinformers and conspiracy theorists with a strong hate motive.
Also, even parts of this article have been debunked by the end of the day. I can't trust anything that comes from their testimony and neither should you.
The common sense expression of this is, "do not let the wolves guard the sheep's pen"
And be exceedingly careful about which wolves we feed. I have no problem with wolves per se especially as in evolutionary terms they gave us our dogs. But feeding the wrong wolves which we certainly havw with the current and certain past Democratic administration. These kleptocrats are in league with the WEF, Bilderberg, Ukrainian Nazi’s and worse. I used to be a liberal from a long line of those who voted Democrat. We’re not talking about our Grandparents Democrats here. These self-described Democrats are Nazis. All in all the United States and much of the world are in epic danger.
You’re right Rick. I may not like what I hear if I heard everything.
I noticed, in your list of people you’d like to hear from, Nancy Pelosi wasn’t on it. I’d like to know what she knew before the events of January 6. And, what decisions did she made. Or not.
The way the whole thing is structured, it’s a show trial. I don’t have to watch it. And I don’t have to do all the things that you think I should do to get justice. The people will speak this November, and I’m sure the Democrats are hoping this is going to get their ox out of the ditch. But they’re gonna be in for a Yuge disappointment.
I most certainly added an Etc.
Nancy Pelosi - bring it on. I alluded to this by bringing up the Capital Police. I have absolutely no issue subpoenaing Nancy or any other of our "so-called leaders".
I am fully confident that the votes will send a very disturbing message to the so-called Democratic Elite: We are tired of your bullshit. That and, it is time to give the decrepit Clinton faction the boot. This does not mean that the same message should not be sent to the likes of Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell and many of the GOP. I also does not mean that AOC, Rashida Talib and other "rising stars" are the future. They can be no less fatuous.
Peter Navarro is a buffoon without a single redeeming quality
Rittenhouse, Duke Lacrosse, Covington and many more cases appeared to be lock down decisions, until the other side got an opportunity in court. Without cross and testimony from the other side, this is merely a DNC infomercial for the 2022 mid terms. Yesterday's 'Bombshell' has already been discredited. What terrifies me is the precedent Nancy's set by allowing this to happen, which could be a far worse precedent than Harry killing the filibuster.
And, these same representatives on this committee held on to Russiagate, and perhaps still do, is further evidence to what's going on.
I don't mind Bari including articles like this as we should see both sides. That's why my aggregator of choice is Realclearpolitics.
I agree. If a proceeding is fundamentally flawed, it has no probative value. As I noted below in my response to another post, regarding the fundamental importance of cross-examination: “More than a century ago, John Henry Wigmore, the renowned American lawyer, legal scholar, and author of a 10-volume treatise on evidence (which Britannica says ‘is generally regarded as one of the world’s great books on law’), wrote that cross-examination is ‘the greatest legal engine ever invented’ for uncovering the truth. The lack of cross-examination at these one-sided, non-adversarial hearings is a fundamental defect that infects and undermines the entirety of these proceedings, and indicates that the goal of the hearings is to do something other than uncover the truth.”
It's very simple: release the video, all the video, now. Release the democrats’ phone records. Let the people decide. We don't need the corrupt priesthood of ideologues in congress telling us what happened. The experts are on the outside - right here. Release the video and all phone records. Let's get it on. This charade reminds me of the opening of "The Outer Limits" TV show although not as well written or produced. I fully expect to hear a version of this opening.
"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits."
Except the “other side” is either refusing to cooperate or have pleaded the Fifth. We will see whether the mystery Secret Service agents or anyone else present themselves to testify under oath. They don’t need a subpoena.
They cooperated until Nancy came up with some just new precedent (ala RvW) to reject McCarthy's selected members. You may buy the 'they were conspirator' logic, but that was just a joke.
Don't forget what the Dems did during the Kavanaugh hearing . . . They were allowed to say whatever they wanted and to make false accusations they wished.
Ugly, but the process played out and we're the better for it (though there were many innocent individuals who are not).
We are not allowed to have a fair, if ugly process here.
The proressives value results over process. I value process over results even if my preferred result is rejected.
If you need an explanation why, think about it.
"Mystery" agents? Why are they a mystery?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/secret-service-agents-testify-trump-lunge-steering-wheel-capitol-riot
So let them present themselves to the committee. If you are right, the committee will refuse to hear them. But until that happens ...
1) You seem to be awfully motivated to present a narrative of "mystery" or "anonymous" agents. Why is that?
2) "If you are right, the committee will refuse to hear them."
What are you talking about?
3) If the committee knew the substance of the testimony why would they not arrange beforehand for those agents to testify? If they fail to invite them now what conclusion would you draw?
What I wrote was “let them present themselves” to the committee. They don’t need an invitation.
In fact, wouldn’t the best way to discredit the committee be for them to go public and offer to testify unconditionally under oath and be refused?
I'll be interested to see how you respond to the multitude of inquiries that I hope the Republicans launch when they take the house in the 2022 elections. There is so much more fodder there than in Trump-world.
I do not want to see tit for tat investigations. I want a full-fledged investigation of election integrity in general including ballot "harvesting" and the veracity of such ballots, and a revisiting of the propriety of corporate donations and influence. Voting is a human endeavor. There may be other things that need inquiry but I would like them to get back to the business of serving the interests' of the people.
The Democrats have become the party of extreme bullying. Just look at what the DoJ has done repeatedly since Biden took over: gone after political opposition. Not crime - political opposition. This cannot be allowed to stand.
Bullies don't stop bullying until they are met with equal resistance. "Tit for tat" investigations will, hopefully, allow Congress to get back to serving the interests of the people. Without this "retaliation", the Dems will just bide their time and restart their inquisitions, with renewed intensity, as soon as they can.
just my opinion...
I agree that the Democrats use bully tactics. I have said before that they will use any means to obtain their end goal. I think that is unscrupulous. I still think it would be wrong to "retaliate" by doing the same thing. We would be better served to do investigations necessary to assure election integrity for example. Investigations to pass valid, Constitutional, laws instead of regulation by unelected bureaucrats. Investigations of the FBI and DOJ to determine their role in political matters. Investigations as to "social" "media" role in society and whether or not they are in fact publishers and should be subject to the same laws as traditional publishers. Investigation of the current situation 9n the Southern border resulting in immigration reform. Investigation of the weaponization of federal agencies- Treasury, DOJ, EPA, etc. Investigation of the Federal Reserve and its role in the creation of untenable fiscal policy. I think if a valid effort is made to actually do the people's business instead of trying to maintain the individual legislator's position or secure his or her party's power into perpetuity then many of the ills we have witnessed of late will be resolved.
That would depend on the nature of the inquiry. If it’s relevant to Congress’ legislative authority, sure. If the inquiry is of a kind to the multiple Benghazi hearings that went nowhere, then I might see that as a waste of resources.
There you have it - I can guarantee you that any inquires will be painted by you as "Benghazi-like".
$100 to your favorite non-political charity the first time you say a Republican inquiry is reasonable and justified.
I won’t hold you to that because the vast majority of hearings by both parties are reasonable and justified. It’s just that we never hear about them.
If you mean to limit your bet to what the media chooses to hype, then why not.
I would venture that Benghazi should have gone somewhere in the sense that at the very least somebody should have lost their job for the rank incompetence that the hearings uncovered. However even if that outcome was unobtainable at least the hearings provided a horrific view into the kind of governmental inertia and miscommunication that results in tragedy.
So Kevin McCarthy declines to put a Trump supporter on the panel, then people complain that there is no Trump supporter on the panel. <smacks head>
Apparentlt you didn't pay attention to this event until the hearings started. The most important issues had to do with how the panel was put together.
Google some other source than HuffPo or Slate to understand what Nancy did to stack the deck.
That is not true. McCarthy chose Banks and Jordan and the committee refused them. The Democrats run the House of Representatives currently. What McCarthy should have done was pull Cheney and Kinzinger off the committee because these two "Republicans" give the Democrats cover. Thank God Kinzinger will be out and Cheney will be defeated in November.
"What terrifies me is the precedent Nancy's set by allowing this to happen, which could be a far worse precedent than Harry killing the filibuster."
Amen, bro. THAT is the danger.
My fear is that's exactly what will happen. The right is just as capable as the left of going all totalitarian.
And lest the progressives try to defend Speaker Pelosi's decision, keep in mind that the Dems were strongly represented during the Kavanaugh hearings.
We heard every nasty, vulger accusation they could come up with to scuttle his confirmation. We watched as organized progressives disturpted the hearings when a bunch of them dressed as women from The Handmaid's Tail entered the chamber. Were heard false accusations against innocent peolple. We heard from the now jailed Michael Avnatti casting slurs for a week all over the airwaves and the hearings were delayed for days and days. And then there were the 2 -3 demonstrators who yelled at a republican senator up close and personal in an elevator . . .
As dirty and cruel as their efforts were, the progressives were given their say. As ugly as it was, the process worked.
Speaker Pelosi has created a precedent that minimizes process in favor of a preferred outcome.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Thank you for adding to the list. There are more, many more.
Seriously, a protest gone bad? Any reasonable look at this can see that Trump instigated the march and knew there would be violence. And he did nothing to stop it. He should be held accountable.
Some riot. Let's compare riots and instigation, shall we? We have many excellent examples from this past week on instigation. Shall we review what Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman AOC said? The White House refused to turn down the heat and encouraged it several times. There were frightening demonstrations in many cities this past week. The DOJ has refused to follow the law and protect the Supreme Court justices.
There are thousands of hours (14,000) of video of the Jan 6 Capital events. There are some that show provocateurs who have been identified as Antifa and FBI collaborators. (Ray Epps, anyone)?
Those who got into the Capital were respectful for the most part. There were no paintings defaced, no statues pulled down, no graffiti. Some windows were broken and one woman was murdered by Lt. Michael Byrd, who has yet to be charged. There is a video of his arm and hand with gun pointing it at Mrs. Babbitt and firing. She was the only one killed that day although there seems to be a new narrative building about 5 deaths that is factually untrue. Then again, to the Left, it is all about narrative.
While Babbitt’s death is regrettable, what do you imagine she would have done had she made it through the broken glass and into the hallway that provided direct access to the hallway down which congresspersons were running? We cannot know for certain, but my guess is that she was not going to sightsee on her own. More likely she would have unlocked the door and the mob would have come streaming through. Who knows what would then have happened.
But that is one of the reasons that the shooting was deemed justified, and that’s a correct conclusion in my view.
She was unarmed. She was murdered.
I watched video of Capitol police opening doors and guiding protesters in. When will we hear about that?
Someone breaking into Congress, the White House, or the Supreme Court followed by a large crowd is going to be shot. How does the guard on the other side of the door know that she was unarmed? The police and security detail that day showed FAR more restraint than they should have.
There were police on the other side of the door and BEHIND her when she was shot. Somehow they did not feel threatened.
The use of deadly force is only justified when one is threatened with grievous bodily harm. Babbitt was unarmed.
That is not the legal standard. But then again, as an open comment section, anything goes apparently.
Try that as a civilian and see what happens to you.
Look what happened to the McCloskey’s in St Louis. No one was shot, much less killed and they were prosecuted and had to surrender their firearms.
You seem to be conceding then that there was no threat of grievous bodily harm.
How was the officer to know she was unarmed?
Was she reaching for a weapon? Did he have any indication that she was threatening bodily harm/death?
Try shooting an unarmed person as a civilian and see what happens. McCloskey’s were prosecuted, fined and had to surrender their weapons. And they never fired a shot. Or killed anyone.
No, it was deemed justified as a way of promoting a lie. Imagine a white male officer shooting a black female, point blank, with no warning. The whole fucking world would have exploded, but in this case, 'crickets'.
You are a clueless twit Charles, and that is as nicely as I can say it, no apologies.
Opinions differ. A reasoned argument on your part rather than name calling might have been more persuasive, but I guess you use what you have.
"who knows what she would have done" is not a reasoned argument for why killing her was justified.
There isn't an argument for it. They killed an unarmed woman who was no threat to anybody, and called it heroism.
Ashley spent her last minutes on Earth asking protestors to not hurt anybody.
You think killing her was justified and gave no excuse why.
No, this is isn't a time for reasoned arguments, your bigotry is inhumane and horrifying.
If you think you made a "reasoned argument", you've got a lot to learn...
Can you please share a single precedent to your position? Outside home invasion, as I'd argue that's an entirely different situation.
So much wrong here, but let's just start and end with the likelihood that your response, and certainly that of the MSM would have been quite different had the shooter been white, and Babbitt black.
And one more thought....the black activist shooter (he was and is) broke a very fundamental rule of shooting in that he fired at Babbitt with policemen in direct line of fire behind her. They should have been pissed off as hell and that alone should have cost this a$$hole his job.
Plus you are supposed to shoot at center mass. A head shot at that range is either a miss (meaning you are incompetent) or a terrible decision.
Real life is different from the movies, even if you are a trained professional that doesn’t make you perfect.
Your first contention is dead wrong. You make a stupid ASSumption with that one.
I agree with your second contention, somewhat.
By stating that my "first contention is dead wrong" you yourself are making an ASSumption. I'm guessing my assumption is closer to the truth.
She was shot to death by the same Lieutenant that left a loaded Glock-22, which has no safety, unattended in the bathroom and correctly bragged that nothing would happen to him. I'm not sure if it was his rank or that he is black lead him to that conclusion. Regardless, he's hardly one of the Capital Police's finest
Murdering an unarmed civilian is NEVER justified. What the hell is wrong with you?
Wasn't she in the military?
Yes. She was an honorably discharged military veteran.
So ... Who knows what might have happened, ergo, no bid deal that an unarmed innocent woman died, hey, probably a good thing!
What a disturbing, not to mention illogical, conclusion.
"Regrettable". Weird that you have the prescience to look into Ms. Babbit's heart and motivations and determine outcomes that no one else could assess. Your take on this is incorrect in my view.
There is also the other woman that was beaten to death by a Capitol cop. I guess she’s irrelevant.
Whatever any of us, or the man who shot her, "imagine" she did not deserve to die. I find the "imagining" exceedingly troublesome. Is that what we have been reduced to?
At that moment she was yelling at Ray Epps, who was urging people to go in, telling him stop.
And, there were 2 other Capitol Police within ten feet of her. The policeman who killed her could have asked them to hold her.
I understand your point of view on the shooting, I hope that you give police officers who are facing armed individuals outside of the capitol the same latitude as the capitol police officer
He has admitted that he saw no weapon in her hands. Please don't come back with "but she might have had a Swiss Equinox"
And police officers who are truly facing ARMED Individuals get a LOT of latitude from me.
And oh by the way, funny that he felt so threatened, all the while Ms Babbitt had a bevy of cops armed and in riot gear right behind her.
No, no, no...those police need to be defunded, or prosecuted for murder. See how it works?
Wow! Too easy to shift the focus to the left and ignore the responsibility of bad Republicans. Suggesting that this is comparable to other frightening demonstrations is just not reality.
Yes, a college frat party gone wrong on Jan 6 is nothing like the hundreds of murderous 'mostly peaceful' demonstrations of 2020. Read Nancy Rommelman's accounts of the Portland antifa 'demonstrations' of 2020 and see what you think. Those were closer to local insurrections than buffalo Q-anon guy sitting in Pelosi's chair.
Hang Mike Pence!!!!!!!
CHAZ/CHOP actually threw the cops out and established their own local government.
It baffles me how some people can rail against Confederate secessionists and then turn around and cheer on the exact same thing in downtown Seattle.
How many people died in the BLM riots? How many billions of dollars in damage from the looting and destruction? There's no comparison in terms of sheer destructiveness between the January 6 riot and the series of riots from the summer previous. And yet there are no Congressional investigations for the far more serious riots in flyover country.
"Those who got into the Capital were respectful for the most part."
You just pulled a 'mostly peaceful protests.' Almost the exact same verbiage.
Maybe so, but they were. We have the footage. Let's compare it to the "mostly peaceful" protests in Seattle, Portland, D. C., NY, Milwaukee, Kenosha, and so many other blue state enclaves.
With respect, I read the transcript of Trump's speech that supposedly "fueled" the "insurrection". I did not get that from anything he said publicly. I would be happy to see a quote rebutting this. Again, not a Trump fan, but looking for the elusive truth behind all of this. In my opinion, Pence was a weasel who turned on his president at the end, probably in hopes of salvaging his future political career, once he saw which way the wind was blowing. Again, I would be happy to see proof that I am wrong.
Respectfully, what did Pence do that supports your opinion?
I believe Pence could have held up certifying the election in view of the innumerable challenges. Remember, this was before all of the "investigations" which followed later. There was no hesitation in holding up the certification of the election of Bush vs Gore when the "hanging chad" controversy arose. The problem here was that the country now is so hyperpartisan and choked with unhinged Trump rage that doing this would have set off who-knows-what "mostly peaceful protests" by the left. Doing this would have been a huge political risk for Pence and required a level of moral courage that he clearly did not possess. Maybe he was just being a realist. Either way, he caved.
If you’re a federalist, then you should agree that any certification issue is left to the states, not one of which (even those controlled by Republicans) saw any need to withdraw their previous certification.
As to Pence, not even Eastman believed his “theory” would get even one vote in the Supreme Court. So there is only one conclusion to be drawn: Pence simply did not have the authority to do what Trump demanded.
It is the job of the VP to certify the votes from the states. The founders were careful not to involve pomp or circumstance into the process and the VP's certification is the last step to ensure legitimacy. I am not here to question Pence's decision, but it is not and was never meant to be a pencil whip.
All ofTrumps court challenges failed. Pence did his job correctly. Trump’s big lie continues to be accepted by those who are willfully blind Republicans.
They did not fail, they were not heard--a big difference.
I don't like Pence (not a fan of the religious right) and not a fan of Trump (an a hole), but Pence was not a weasel for refusing to fuel the fantasies of Trump. Maybe there were electoral issues, maybe there weren't, but Pence wasn't a weasel for failing to follow Trump.
I don't think a legitimate skepticism of the election results, given all the reported irregularities from multiple sources would have been out of order. It was not a matter of following Trump but of thinking critically and following through. Critical thinking is in short supply these days. I do think it was a weasely thing to do and I always liked Pence because I thought he was a good counterpoint to Trump. No longer.
Even far left and seriously honest Glenn Greenwald has characterized the event as at most a riot, not an insurrection. And in the context of what we saw all summer of 2020, this was “mostly peaceful”.
Trump’s words, which were cut from the soundbite, called for a peaceful march on the Capitol.
Amazing.
So amazing that you apparently have no factual rebuttal. If you're not going to contribute to the conversation in a productive fashion maybe you should just do the earth a favor and save the bandwidth.
Instigated?... Please shut up. People are responsible for their own actions, even if they choose to subscribe to group think. The only persons actions that Trump is responsible for are his own. He was not at the head of the pack or egging them on with a megaphone, he was miles away and out of contact with this mob. This type of mental approach is the perfect explanation for how the voting mentality of the Left operates, the truth is what the greatest number of people can convince themselves of... really sad.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious to those who willfully refuse to see it.
He offered national guard troop several times and was rejected by Pelosi and Bowser...
THEY should be held accountable.
BS
documented fact...
as you said...BS
Trump offered National Guards and Pelosi/Bowser rejected it. It's almost like they wanted this to happen. Weird, huh?
With Antifa and FBI connected insurgents planted in the crowd to try to get people provoked it does strongly suggest pre-planning and that they wanted it. Tucker keeps bringing up the guy who planted 2 pipe bombs who was never pursued. Fortunately they didn't detonate but he is caught on camera and could have been identified.
I like you am a conservative, not a Republican. I despise both parties but I vote Republican because I can't bring myself to vote Socialist. I agree with your evaluation of Trump. He is a lying, megalomaniacal, bully.
The left ignores that Hillary tried to subvert the democratic process by spreading the lie that Trump colluded with the Russian. The left and the press jumped on this lie like flies on cow flop.
I think your post hit the nail on the head.
"I learned a lot from the committee"
"Trump is egotistical and says dumb mean things"
So, you learned nothing new.
Nothing in this article was new information, or even remotely approaches validating a year and a half of openly deceitful and partisan "investigations" while the country's real problems get dramatically worse.
And please let's not pretend there was ever an intent to do a fair investigation, led by California Democrats who are on public record acknowledging that they lied to us about Trump for years and don't regret it. Now the same people lead the "truth Committee".
It's a mockery of truth.
Perfect. Thank you.
It seems many of those deriding the hearings admit to not watching them and are obviously getting their spin from Trump-supporting media. These hearings are unlike any of the hearings you seem to be comparing them to. There is little showboating. Committee members do not get to make those long-winded partisan statements before the witness is questioned. Yes, Pence was always a weasel until it came down to the choice between continuing to bow and scrape to the toddler-in-chief and doing the right thing. There never have been any credible allegations of election fraud, no matter how many times Trump supporters try to say there were. It astounds me that anyone who has even paid the slightest attention to the actual hearings can still refuse to see what is patently obvious.
You are entitled to your opinion. This is what I love about Common Sense; that such things can be discussed with civility. I think the movie, 2000 Mules, was a game-changer, at least for me. It presented an entirely novel way to subvert an election in a way that could have skewed the results meaningfully and would not have been recognized unless someone thought to look in this direction. This possibility was never alluded to in any of the previous investigations and I believe it clearly needs to be looked into very closely. Will it? I doubt it. The left has made us so fatigued with Trump hysteria ( and Trump himself is his own worst enemy) that I doubt the film will gain any investigative traction, especially since our institutions- DOJ, FBI, etc- have been weaponized as political foils for the left for the most part. I hate to say this but I believe it to be true, same as the media, academic institutions, and my field of medicine.
Sorry, but anyone who thinks 2000 Mules has any credibility at all is lost in the mire of right wing conspiracy theories. Good luck.
Ok, then let's talk about 100% voter turnout in areas where that isn't possible.
Let's talk about 400 million leftist billionaire Zuckerbucks being send to Democrat counties in swing states. Open election meddling from private sector billionaires.
Let's talk about the FBI sitting on criminal evidence of the Biden family, doing nothing, and publicly lying about its credibility.
Let's talk about a once-objective news media shamelessly campaigning for one party.
Let's talk about unequal treatment under the law, where leftist protesters got exceptions from lockdown rules so they could march for Democrats while right wing demonstrations we're shut down over the virus.
Let's talk about the videos of Democrat vote counters pulling out hidden bags as soon as Republicans are out of the room. Or the videos of drug dealers with stacks of ballots bragging about their profitability being better than the drugs.
There's lots more, ZL. How much more does there have to be for you to even consider a slightly less bigoted perspective?
Agree. Can’t upvote on an iPad this far down into the thread.
ditto
This comment is long on rhetoric but completely lacking in factual analysis. If you think the documentary can be debunked let's see your arguments. Otherwise maybe if you are not going to contribute in a productive manner maybe you should do the earth a favor and save the bandwidth.
There are plenty of resources via google which can point you to the fallacies/lies/unproven conspiracy theories in 2000 Mules. Or you can take the word (under oath) of Bill Barr. Perhaps you should defend it with factual analysis instead of wasting bandwith deriding others as unproductive.
The question of a stolen election is really two questions. Barr opined on the first, and he may well be correct that there was no clear evidence thst the ck7 ting of the ballots didn’t show large scale fraud.
BUT there is the second question about the election being stolen that has great merit.
The ballots may have been counted mostly correctly, but there is substantial evidence to indicate that enough ballots were in the pool that counted that either shouldn’t have been there or were tempered with.
Start with the mid election changes to the absentee ballot rules in some swing states by Democratsmin charge. Spoiled ballots are to be discarded. Instead, they changed the rules to count them or in Democrat precincts, they called voters back to fix them. In one state, they did that even though state law said that absentee ballots can’t be opened until the pols closed.
In another state, ballot harvesting was allowed even though it’s against the law. In cases where nursing home votes were collected and the law required the collection process be supervised by an election official, the supervision was ignored.
Ballots were collected in drop boxes in places that were intentionally lacking in security. Security cameras these days cost less than $100.
There is actually video of people dropping off handfuls of ballots when the law doesn’t allow that.
Then there is the Zuckerbucks and the allowance of Democrat officials to allow private people to materially take over the election process.
So yes, the election WAS stolen.
Before FDR’s first term, the president took office in March. Thst may have provided courts and investigators a better opportunity to get to the truth.
You lost me at "plenty of resources via google which can point you to the fallacies/lies/unproven conspiracy theories in 2000 mules."
Are you aware that google is part of the LEFT and promotes articles that are paid for written pieces backed by deep state actors? Have you not heard of green washing or astroturfing? Politifact, Snopes, all those outlets get paid to write counter articles to debunk and confuse. Someone searches and finds something that looks credible and says, "oh, I guess, I was imaging that, or so so was wrong, this very credible source says otherwise". If you follow the rabbit hole of the sources you read you will realize most, if not all, are compromised by big money and deep state influence to debunk and confuse.
So deciding that something is or isn't true based on a google search is counterproductive. Google is always going to be lockstep with the mainstream narrative. It's the non mainstream and the censored voices you need to listen to if you want truth. But most don't want truth they want peace and that is fine too.
Did you graduate high school?
Anyone who thinks 2000 Mules lacks credibility is lost in the mire of left wing nihilism.
You cannot just leave it at that. Why do you believe this?
I read. I listen. Why do I have to justify my beliefs while you don't?
Petulant much?
I was just asking you to state why you do not believe 2000 Mules to be credible. Nothing more. Peace.
You're making the charge, you provide the evidence to back it up. Or do you really not understand that?
Several people have been prosecuted for illegal actions pertaining to the 2020 election. You should educate yourself.
Sorry, but you're an idiot. Edited. I was in a rush when posting.
If you're going to call someone else and idiot, maybe use the proper contraction for "you're" while you're at it... Just a suggestion.
I fully expect him to use the Poopy Pants come back next. But remember "Sticks and Stones...." or "I'm rubber,. "You're glue...." But maybe his Mom called him in for lunch.
It's "you're".
You're an idiot.
Combine 2000 Mules with Rigged (by Mollie Hemingway) and you have a pretty damn compelling picture of an election that, I believe in 20 years, will be seen to have been as fraudulent as any elections in third world countries.
Take Biden at his word: the best voter fraud organization in history.
And I still have to ask the question no one else seems to be asking: If the left claims the 2020 elections were the most secure and transparent in history, why are they pushing so hard for federalization of elections?
A picture is not evidence and Trump’s own head of cybersecurity - not the left - was the one who declared that 2020 was the most secure election in history.
Most secure, huh? Then why is your side calling for, unconstitutionally, a federal takeover of elections?
Pretty strange, don't you think?
Maybe you should take up the security matter directly with Chris Krebs.
https://rollcall.com/2020/11/17/cybersecurity-chief-who-oversaw-most-secure-election-fired-by-trump/
As to the federal takeover of elections, I assume you are referring to the House bill that went nowhere trying to establish minimum consistent standards for federal elections. I wouldn’t be so quick to characterize the matter as unconstitutional as it would depend on many things, including the Legislative branch’s power in the Constitution - same issue with the Voting Rights Act which has passed constitutional muster.
As a personal matter, I’d prefer the Democrats to take the time to organize in the states, get people who are qualified to vote registered and then make their case state by state. It’s just that I may be waiting a long time before that happens. As Will Rogers said, “I am not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat.” Still true.
Excellent question. The answer, to me, is obvious: consolidate control and continue on the path to the radical transformation of our constitutional republic into an authoritarian regime controlled by progressive elites.
Just to be fair, here is an attempt to rebut 2000 Mules.
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/06/evidence-gaps-in-2000-mules/
Saw this, and others. I remain convinced there is something very real there in their investigation and it deserves closer scrutiny. Perhaps just bringing in a few "mules" in interviewing them......
I think the Georgia attorney general is trying to get the identity of their whistleblower so he can be interrogated. I'm hoping that happens to get us some clarification.
Ann Coulter, who certainly can't be considered to be centralist or leftist by any means even thinks the Mules is full of crap.
I got my spin here and it is indeed spin. A lot of it.
Yes. Trump lost me with his extraordinary Sore Loser behavior (nature). BUT the Jan 6 theatre is no more legitimate than their impeachments, most stunningly their 2nd one where ‘there isn’t any time to let there be any defense’. MY biggest reason for that conclusion is simple: the defendant is not being allowed any representation or cross-examination of the evidence being put forward. Try that in any courtroom.
His crazy refusal to admit that Biden either won legitimately or to hand over power saying “I can’t prove it, but we’ll figure it out and I’ll be back” has been an embarrassing stain on his supporters and himself. I do thank goodness that Pence stuck to his principles.
Don’t mistake this as even the slightest agreement with the Democrats behavior which is nearly as disgusting.
I get why Trump would be so incredibly frustrated by being knifed at every turn, every day throughout his term. It’s just that doesn’t justify the refusal to exit with grace and maturity.
If you want to review what Trump faced from the “Vast Left Wing Conspiracy “, look at the Time magazine article: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/?amp=true
But he did hand over power. Maybe it wasn’t as graceful or dignified as say the Clinton’s stealing the furniture, but he did leave, he didn’t have to pried from the door frames and Joey depends got installed.
And now we are suffering.
Agree
Nothing Trump did or continues to do surprises any of us who read "Art of the Deal."
Couldn’t agree more with these sentiments, and don’t know how this sloppy, biased article was up to par for Common Sense. Yesterday was nothing but hearsay that has already been debunked by those who were in the Beast. And why didn’t Pelosi accept the support of the National Guard? Why?
Who else in the beast has actually debunked it? There has been mention the USSS agents have said it wasn’t true, but I’ve yet to hear them say that themselves. Now if a USSS agent disputes this under oath, then you have my attention.
The driver said it didn’t happen. The driver! I would assume the driver was actually there.
How can we get your attention if the J6 committee won't call those witnesses? How about the crack pot journalists that easily debunked the Russia gate hoax, the fine people on both sides nonsense, the drinking bleach BS, the Hunter Biden laptop Russia disinformation smoke screen, etc. etc. etc.? Should we depend on them to get your attention? I think too many people on this thread are missing the point of the J6 committee. It was merely a professionally produced attempt at applying the art of persuasion. Don't miss this point: Batya was swayed. Maybe that's why BW shared the article for all we know.
They posted on their own Twitter page that it never happened and they never said what Hutchinson alleges.
Some people would demand that it be said under oath, I guess...but those are the same people that may be inclined to dismiss their sworn statements as lies. You can't change a mind that can't be changed. The J6 show was just too persuasive for Batya (et al). They just can't see that they were lied to. The resultant cognitive dissonance is to be the expected.
‘They’ accuse ‘us’ of bias but that’s a human trait that none of us is immune to. I’ve read studies finding that conservatives are better at seeing their own blind spots than are those on the left. I think that’s because so many leftist beliefs are magical thinking to begin with.
Were these statements debunking Ms. Cassidy done under oath before the committee? Why do so many of the principles involved take the 5th or just ignore subpoenas? Why did both Meadows and Giuliana ask Trump for pre-emptive pardons?
Why? Because they know Merrick Garland and the DOJ...and have been proven right to stay quiet.
If I had been subpoenaed, my testimony would have been a two word answer to every question: "eff you". Pelosi and her gang are beyond reprehensible.
It is my opinion that Garland and the DOJ are quietly and painstakingly moving forward with their own investigations and will work their way up from bottom to top. He knows that given the political climate any charges he brings must be airtight.
Why exactly then are politicians running a parallel investigation while the cops continue theirs? Maybe, just maybe, it would behoove everyone to just wait until the DOJ finishes their investigation and only then launch committee hearings? Especially if the political climate is making the jobs of the actual prosecutors harder?
Or maybe it's because of Mueller's legacy?
Sure...
Flynn. His reputation was destroyed and he suffered tremendous personal loss for a political vendetta that resulted in zero criminal charges.
"resulted in a presidential pardon"
There. Fixed it for you.
Uh, you know that the DOJ decided to drop the charges, right? Kind of a lot of stories about the judge refusing to comply? Maybe you read a few?
And the DOJ threatened to start hounding Flynn's kids to get to him. Real class move, right?
What a brilliant reply Rick thank you for this and I might add if President Trump does run in 2024 I will definitely be voting for him I vote policy not personality the same can be said of Bill Clinton although he was a morally bankrupt man that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good President all though I never ever vote me him or his wife!
If you think having a morally bankrupt President is fine, then carry on!
Do you believe the Bidens are not morally bankrupt?
I’m not a Biden fan, but I do think his morals are a lot better than Trump. I’m a centre right conservative and Biden has been centre left, but has been dragged more left by the crazies in his party. I want a Republican President like a Regan or George Bush senior.
It appears that Biden's family and Biden himself were able to reap millions of dollars in salary and benefits from Ukrainian and Chinese businesses based solely on Biden's office of vice president.
It appears? Do you also think that Trump hasn’t ensured that he and his family have reaped all kinds of financial benefits from his Presidency.
So you think a plagiarist who lies every time he opens his mouth; who falsely claimed that his wife and daughter were killed, and his sons injured, by a drunk driver, when it was his wife who was at fault; who was known as Senator MBNA for being in bed with the Delaware banking establishment until Obama picked him for VP; who voted for the crime bill long before he was ever against it; who voted against abortion long before he was for it is morally better than a blowhard but centrist-policy president—and these are only the things we know for sure (I for one totally believe he stuck his finger into Tara Reader’s bum and, when she stopped him from going further, groused “Come on man; I heard you liked me”)—is simply mystifying to me.
we do now. happy?
... like morals are a centrally essential "thing" that makes or breaks a stay in the White House.
A meme on my Facebook page yesterday - "A vote is not a Valentine. You aren't confessing your love for the candidate. It's a chess move for the world you want to live in."
Agreed. Part of me thinks the fact I’m over Trump means they already won. That’s what they wanted from all these produced scandals. They’ve taken his bombastic, annoying behavior and tried to make it criminal which it isn’t. I’m just over it all.
I think they are grasping at straws because their entire party's focus has been lying about Trump for five years. When Biden won, I wondered how they would managed to still continue making everything about Trump, because they have no other platform and are losing their base without a constant source of radicalism and outrage.
This, this is how they continued to make it about Trump. For 18 months and ongoing, while our nation is in a state of chaos and suffering almost entirely driven by bad policy.
I am over all of the TDS. Five years of lies and hate-mongering about Trump, and they still won't stop.
Couldn't agree more. You said, "I hope Trump does not run again. He had his day and I cannot stand the thought of another four years of unhinged anti-Trump rage. Biden is the worst president in my lifetime." and I echo that statement.
The ludicrous ideas (Trump grabbed the wheel from 3 rows back. Really?) coming out of the hearings yesterday are just that, ludicrous.
Last week it was the overwhelming sentiment of the American people that we have bigger issues within our country to deal with right now; like an administration that doesn't seem to give a shit about the people and their struggles. Inflation, crime, the marginalization of the vaccine injured, to name a few. No matter where you stand on the "Pandemic" and how it was handled, what is to come as it relates to how it was handled is going to go down in history as one of the worsts times in human history. The governments of the world behaved badly and people are suffering. We were abused by our governments and it continues.
I feel like the Jan 6th hearings are just another distraction meant to divert attention away from the suffering of humanity as it relates to the "Pandemic" and the policies and actions of our leaders who abused and harmed people for profit.
Just last week Dr. Birx testified in front of the Senate and when asked if when the government told people that they wouldn't get Covid if they were vaccinated, were they guessing or were they lying? Dr. Birx said "I don't know". When asked if when the government told the people that the vaccinated couldn't transmit it? Dr. Birx said, "I think it was hope [sic] that the vaccines would work in that way.
The lies about Covid and the experimental gene therapy are piling up and have been for sometime. The American people are just so happy to be moving past this time, that they, in true fashion, have selective and short-term memories. This is ugly and it's not going away no matter what silly distraction our government clowns attempt. Still they attempt. We can't trust our leaders, our federal institutions, our healthcare systems, and its doctors. We have been lied to, gas-lit, abused, and poisoned, both physically and mentally.
Never before was it more obvious than now that our Commander and Chief isn't exactly in charge. What a sham we find ourselves here in America. To think these two; Biden/Harris are the best America has to offer? To anyone paying attention and a bit skeptical, we are being intentionally destroyed from within. Jan 6th was nothing more than an orchestrated false flag event perpetrated on the American people to further rob us of our RIGHTS. Like 9/11 and The Patriot Act. Deeper and deeper we go.
Before we can ever really heal and unite we are going to have to address the past two years and the broken system and realize that this one-sided North Korea Style Propaganda show the LEFT is putting forth is just more of the same SHOW they ALL feed us to keep us from the real problems that plaque our society. Do they (elected leaders) do any real work? Why do we continue to play in their charade?
Term limits and a betrayal of public trust amendments. Betrayal of public trust: If an elected official lies it would be treated as perjury. If they profit from their office like so many have, off to prison with them. This insider trading is practiced by both parties. Joe Bide has two houses, one a beach house. These houses are worth about 6 million dollars. Nancy Pelosi is worth, depending on you listen to, between 100 and 500 million. neither Nancy nor Joe made enough money as members of congress to have that much money.
If sent to prison, they don't go to club fed. They go to maximum security prisons. Where they serve a minimum of five years. In no time they will be taking long warm showers with large muscled up people with lots of tattoos and when released, they get no retirement or any other government benefits. If this unfairly impacts their families, so be it. They should have thought of that when they were breaking the law.
I'm tired of the self-serving a**holes. They disgust me.
I share your frustration. When institutions fail, we are in a heap of trouble.
What can I say? I agree with everything you said. My view of the management of the pandemic can only be expressed in words not fit to use in public. I have never been more ashamed of my profession.
If I’m going by the people who have replied to this article I have to say the Democrats are in serious trouble just going into the midterms and yes I agree with everything written by you here that the behavior of this current administration has to be the worst in American history and yes it’s the first time ever in human history that governments have locked down a healthy population. However, the American people are fighting back we are all just sick and tired of all the bullshit!!
you basically said you hope Trump does not run again because you don’t want to go through four more years of anti-Trump rage. Think about that! The progressives, in their lawlessness and continuing riots, and continuing media attacks, and continuing baseless investigations, have succeeded in convincing folks like you that a competent president should not run again because progressives will continue to riot against his competence, as they don’t care for his policies. What you don’t realize is that should another Republican run who continues Trump’s policies, no matter his personality, we will have more rage for another four years regardless.
The country is in exceedingly difficult financial trouble. Epoch Times reports it’s very likely that the Fed, in September, will be forced to begin printing more money to prevent United States default on its debt. since they raised interest rates it’s more expensive to pay off
our debt.
We need a president who understands finances and money and we need one very soon.Stop being afraid of progressive rage because it’s unpleasant;there are FAR more unpleasant things that could be catastrophic for this country and very likely will under the wrong leadership. We simply cannot afford another mistake.
Most of the time it is better to be the power behind the throne. That's the role I'd like Trump to play.
I don’t see Trump anxious to play that role, and I believe that should much of the electorate agree with Bosshart above, the progressives will have learned a key lesson: all they have to do is attack attack attack and the public, seeking calm and civility On the part of the opposition party, will flee from any competent president with whose policies the progressives disagree.
The fault lies with the progressives and the way in which they choose to behave when they disagree with the policies of an incoming president. The last thing the voting public needs to do is encourage such behavior as it will only get even worse
I agree, and that's too bad. He can have far more impact there.
I think Melania and Barron are going to have a say at another go at this and I think that will be a shrill hell no. I also think Ivanka and Jared will move on. That'll leave Don Jr and maybe his GF Kimberly Guilfoyle. He NEEDS his family and if he doesn't have them, he won't be running.
I think you're right.
In addition, Ivanka and Jared will become consultants to the Dem nominee.
That would be traitorous! 😫
You make an excellent point. My lifelong, best friend, Dave, one of the most intellingent, well-read, reasonable people I know told me the same thing when I said I hope Trump won't run. If we let the unhinged screeches and tantrums of the left make us cancel ourselves or do something other than what we feel we ought to do, they have won.
Don’t you find it at least worth some of your reflecting on the fact that hearing’s “the progressive narrative” is based almost entirely on the testimony of Republicans, some of whom had access to both Trump and the facts about the election?
The hearings may lack cross-examination by the GOP (and no particularly credible lines of cross have been suggested), but don’t pretend that the testimony is all lefties and anti-Trumpers.
Although I dislike pithy acronyms, I call your attention to the term RINO. As I said, I freely admit that I have not listened to or viewed the hearings for the reasons I mentioned. Nothing I have seen or heard modifies my opinion of such hearings and this one in particular. The consequences are so dire of accusing a president of insurrection that the hearings should be transparently and clearly non-partisan and all rules of evidence should be followed. They are not.
More than a century ago, John Henry Wigmore, the renowned American lawyer, legal scholar, and author of a 10-volume treatise on evidence (which Britannica says “is generally regarded as one of the world’s great books on law”), wrote that cross-examination is “the greatest legal engine ever invented” for uncovering the truth. The lack of cross-examination at these one-sided, non-adversarial hearings is a fundamental defect that infects and undermines the entirety of these proceedings, and indicates that the goal of the hearings is to do something other than uncover the truth.
I find it hard to believe that, at this juncture, people are still confusing Donald Trump and the GOP as one in the same.
I agree with your skepticism and hope for a more balanced evaluation of the events on 1/6. I’m often disgusted by Trumps behavior but support many of his actions. The evidence of election fraud may not be available but the circumstantial evidence points to a grave concern for the legitimacy of the process including who performs the counting.
I find it dangerous to highlight the riotous behavior of a small portion of a very large crowd while obscuring video and refusing to identify how many gov actors were part of the crowd. Ray Epps for instance. This refusal to be transparent makes the hearings a farce.
During the hearings, they have been playing portions of Bill Barr’s deposition. He makes it very clear they found no evidence of significant voting fraud, and he thought the 2000 Mules documentary was a joke. They have also played videos of many other depositions from Trump admin employees, and Republican election officials from GA and AZ who also testified there was no evidence found of significant voting fraud. They explain what was actually discovered when several of the major claims were thoroughly investigated. I can understand speculation if the witnesses were closely associated with Democrats, but overwhelmingly the testimony, both in depositions and in person, had come from former Trump officials and other Republicans. If you want to dispute whether Trump is responsible in one way or another for the violence on Jan 6, I think you can make a reasonable argument. However, when dozens of Republicans who worked for Trump and wanted him to win say they could find no evidence of fraud, then I don’t know how you doubt that.
I just cannot bring myself to trust them. When they go after Hillary, the laptop, etc. I may be ready to change my mind.
I disagree with Barr, who I like very much, on his assessment of the movie.
He was AG responsible for the the Department responsible for investigating the allegations, including those arising from issues discussed in 2000 mules. That gives his testimony pretty heavy weight. I can understand you don’t have the time or desire to watch the hearings, but if you like Barr, why not watch his depositions and read the portion of his book that covers investigating the allegations?
the issues arising out of 2000 mules did not surface until after Barr left office, so he could not have investigated - even ignoring that there was not nearly enough time.
There is this funny little thing called "life" that gets in the way of doing all the things I would like to do. My original commentary was a response to what I saw as a very slanted and poor article which I felt was not up to the standards of Common Sense. All of us are constrained by time and the difficulty in sifting throught the mass of reported to find what looks like objective truth.
Remind us again: when did Barr leave office?
Near the very end of Trump’s term, after Barr refused to back his claims the election was stolen because all of the accusations that were made had been investigated and no evidence was found there was fraud. That’s when he left. After serving longer than any of Trump’s other several AGs and acting AGs.
And how many months after the election was that?
So if these issues come to light in say, March, Barr is supposed to do what exactly?
Somebody else quoted Alan Dershowitz's criticism of the movie, which is that while it does not produce definitive evidence of fraud it does conclusively demonstrate that mail in balloting is inherently a terrible way to run an election.
It would be unfortunate if that more important point was lost in all of the controversy.
found no evidence of fraud... there was plenty of evidence, but not nearly enough time to investigate
to your point: if the 2020 elections were the most secure every, whey are Dems desperately trying to have the federal government take over the elections?
Answer: they know R's will learn to play the game and want to prevent any competition in the League of Cheaters.
A comical, Stalinesque show trial trots out a bunch of pearl clutching hysterical people who offer third hand hearsay and pop psychology garbage, all managed by the people who gave us a running, 4 year coup attempt and you offer up this pathetic garbage. Shame on you, Bari.
Trump is fading into the twilight on his own. The Democrats are destroying our nation as Americans suffer needlessly from their ineptitude and dogmatic refusal to recognize reality. We do not need to feed their lies and frenzy. Please remove this crap and get back to what you're best at - offering facts to be considered and debated by patriotic American adults.
Thank you Bruce.
With headlines like this I no longer read the article first.
I read some of the comments first to gauge if the article is worth my time.
I’ll pass on this one.
"I don't read the articles". Good way to stay informed. God forbid you hear something you don't agree with.
Some subjects don’t interest me. I determined a long time ago that Trump’s behavior - between the election in November and the 1/6 attack on the Capital - disqualifies him for public office in the future.
I sat through Nancy Pelosi’s vendetta against Trump with two impeachment hearings, ripping up his State of the Union speech on national TV and three years of the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. I’m not going to watch another Nancy Pelosi farce. The women is sick with rage against this one man. She bleeds contempt for Trump. Somewhere along the way he pissed her off, because she embodies the phrase: hell hath no fury like a women scorned. The only consolation prize is that SCOTUS will continue to rule on issues that will get inside of her head and destabilize her further.
Same, scrolled straight to the comments where I've spent WAY too much time .... it's always worth the time though.
Yes, sometimes the comments are more interesting than the article itself.
Stalinesque? Isn't that exactly who Trump wants to be and his supporters wish he were? A strong man in power until he dies.
Baloney.
Trump, for all his bombastic speech, respects Federalism. It's why he offered, but didn't call out, the National Guard to the states that were experiencing riots. He could have called them out to protect, if nothing else, the Federal courthouses that were under siege.
Trump did not use his DOJ to go after his political enemies as we daily see now. In fact, the three letter agencies were against him and plotted to fabricate "facts" to destroy his presidency and have him impeached. Robert Muller anyone?
He didn't "offer" the National Guard; he threatened it. Big difference. Trump constantly tried to use his powers unilaterally. Trump couldn't even define Federalism if you asked him.
Biden, the DOJ , the FBI and DHS use their powers unilaterally. Daily. Trump never did and never has.
All right, so you're not intending to debate honestly. Got it.
You literally just used this space to comment about not debating while simultaneously NOT debating! Rich, Mike, rich!
ROFL...like the LEFT ever does. You make me laugh.
When Obama ran for President there were scores of chartered buses lined up on the local university campus to take all the students to vote for him. I have never seen anything like it. The enthusiasm was palpable.
Biden did very few public events. He mostly hid in his basement in Delaware. When he did have appearances in public there were those handful of white circles on the ground for attendees to stand or sit in. Heck, some of the time they couldn't find enough people to place in the circles and had to drag in the press or their staff to fill them. Contrast that to Trump's rallies where the least well attended had over 30,000 with huge overflow crowds to the horizon. People camped out 2-3 days before so they could get a spot in line.
Oh yeah I believe Biden got more black votes than Obama. Yeah, I believe that.
You're underestimating how many people didn't want to suffer another 4 years under Trump. Unfortunately in politics in America right now, it's more about voting against someone than voting for someone. Credit to Trump, he generated stronger turnout and (fortunately) a huge percentage of that turnout was people who were flatly disgusted with his presidency and wanted to see him gone. But saying "I don't believe more Blacks voted for Biden than Obama" with nothing to back it up is a weak argument. The truth is more Blacks voted against Trump than voted against either of Obama's opponents; that makes perfect sense - neither of those guys was an overt racist.
Not even remotely, and this is the kind of bigoted ignorance that has pissed off the right for the last five years.
Independent Tim - you have to be kidding
Well despite your fevered cries that Trump would never leave office voluntarily, that's precisely what he did. Churlishly, perhaps,, but he left.
So once again, you and your comrades we're full of it. Despite Trump's flaws, his presidency was a success - look at the chaos we have now - and if he was a "dictator" he was the most lax and inept dictator the world has ever known. The senile imbecile who replaced him has jailed far more political prisoners than Trump did. In fact, Trump didn't imprison or charge even one political opponent.
Dolt.
Tucker last night listed the people the Biden administration has gone after. NONE of them have committed any crimes.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/06/29/tucker-carlson-walks-through-a-list-of-political-dissidents-the-biden-administration-has-targeted-in-the-last-18-months/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tucker-carlson-walks-through-a-list-of-political-dissidents-the-biden-administration-has-targeted-in-the-last-18-months
Thank you so much for that link.
I missed Tucker last night due to a business dinner.
I kinda wish they'd come after me. I tend not to play nice.
If you get a subscription to Foxnation you'll never miss any of his shows.
Oh, thanks. I have one. I remembered your note and watched the Wednesday episode last night. I was infuriated. Biden and Garland have turned our FBI into an American Stasi. Are there no agents with the character and honor to refuse these patently unconstitutional arrests and attempts at political intimidation? If the FBI wants to declare war on free Americans then they'll have to deal with the consequences.
You’re a nut. No one wants that. It’s crazy you really believe that.
No.
Bruce: good for you!
Bari: I am thinking of dumping you. Shame on you.
Exactly!!!
Brilliantly put, and I would agree, except Stalin’s trials were not comical. The accused were tortured physically and emotionally into confession of guilt. Our society is gentle in comparison. We just have plenty of people who would sell their souls for future cushy employment or book contract and testify under oath whatever is expected from them. With their attorney pre-approval, of course. So, out of respect for victims of Stalin’s terror, let’s not compare his show trials with this circus.
Good points but do you honestly think this bunch would be any better than Beria if they thought they could get away with it?
Different time, different society. But they definitely show promise, I have to agree. I get skin bumps from watching video of Stone arrest. Or from reading how Feds seized Eastman’s phone in the street. The power is intoxicating and leads to impunity. If Democrats win again, everything may be possible. History repeats itself because nobody wants to learn from its lessons. The irony of it for me and my family - to run away from the Soviet Union only to make a full circle. Feels like deja vu.
So if it agrees with your preexisting narrative it's "facts to be considered and debated by PATRIOTIC American adults", but if you don't agree with it, it's not worth your time. Good way for you to learn and grow.
If this were an actual trial, with evidence and testimony provided by each side, I believe that most fair minded people would listen - and be willing to learn. But the hearings do not rise to that level and thus, many are not interested. They’ve made up their mind a long time ago.
To be fair, most Republicans took their ball and went home and refused to even participate. It's not fair for one side to refuse to be a part of an activity, then accuse it of being one-sided.
It wasn’t fair that we witnessed the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax for 3 years either. But we did.
Why is it every time Republicans are accused of acting like babies, their only response is "he did it first!!!"?
Ok, so both Republicans and Democrats act like babies. Now we are getting somewhere. Progress. Glad you can see where both sides make mistakes. That’s rare. Many that I’ve encountered on the other team would never admit that their team made a mistake.
I agree.
If you think anything in which Adam Schiff plays a pivotal role is remotely fair and factual you simply can't be taken seriously. Not even by Fang Fang.
"Trump is fading into the twilight on his own." That observation did not age well.
Nostradamus I am not.
Truth is, from what I see, unless his health deteriorates, Trump is gaining speed. Maybe the world is waking up, witness Milei and Wilders and Abascal's rising popularity.
Acknowledge how troublesome it is to not have representation or cross examination then just believe everything you hear. Wow.
1. There are two Republicans on the committee.
2. There would have been more but McCarthy refused to put respected people on there but instead tried to blow it up with people.
That's it in a nutshell!
Just as I can think that abortion is simultaniously an evil act and that it should be legal....I can also hold other seemingly conflicting opinions.
1. Was Jan 6th an insurrection? No. It was a mob that was allowed to get out of control. Were there professional adjitators involved? Probably. Were there FBI agents in the crowd, some perhaps egging them on? Very likely. Did Trump fail to do all he could to rein it in? I think he could have done more but I do not think he intentionally set it in motion.
2. Do I believe Trump lost the election? Yes. Do I believe that there were games played in key states to assure that happened? Very likely and I think the odds were stacked against him by the media and social media and various localities. If all that changed, would he have won? Not likely but maybe.
Also....I take a lot of what comes out in these hearings with a big grain of salt.
1. They were clearly set up to be a political hit job. That there were no republicans on the that were not hand picked by Pelosi did it for me. That fact alone made the whole thing not worth paying attention to.
2. I would have had a lot more faith in the election had the democrats not fought so hard to avoid any investigations into irregularities. There WERE irregularities. Had the democrats and the media decided to do real investigations into them, regardless of where they lead, I would have more faith in the outcome. But instead, they just dismissed legitimate concerns out of hand and rushed ahead. Which then makes me suspicious of what they are hiding. What do they know or suspect that they are afraid of transparency?
3. I take the witnesses with a grain of salt too. Largely hand picked and coached by a committee and its staff that had an outcome in mind when they started. Its like hearing only the prosecution in a criminal case and knowing that the prosecution cherry picked the witnesses and told them what to say. I also suspect that some of these former staff members that are testifying against Trump have an agenda, that being to rehabilitate their social circles and job opportunities. So, again, I take that them with a big grain of salt.
Now, did I agree with Trump's policies? Yes I did. He proved right on a lot of things from NATO to China to dealing with COVID in a rational way. He got NAFTA fixed. He was right about the Europeans being dependent on Russia for their energy. He was right on the border. He got a lot right by running counter to the DC narrative. WHICH....is why he got elected in the first place.
DO I think he should be re-elected? No. He is too vindictive a personality to be allowed back in. Plus, he would be term limited the day he took the oath. Then, it would really incite violence and even deeper polarization. No. My pick would be DeSantis, Trump policies without Trump.
Well said. How I feel exactly.
Ditto
As to your #1, the persons McCarthy had selected seemed to have been involved in some of the events under investigation, either in brainstorming how to help Trump in pushing the “Stop the Steal” or communicating with the WH while hiding from those who invaded the halls of Congress. You can’t both be a potential witness and a judge.
As to your #2, much of the testimony is being provided by Republican insiders.
Charles, my point holds. Regardless of who McCarthy would have picked, there is NO opposing view, no challenge to the narrative being spun. There is not challenging of the evidence or the witnesses. It is simply a one sided story with an agenda. That simply makes it pointless. It has no credibility. Even IF McCarthy picked his own version of extremists with and agenda at least each side could challenge the others facts. Then WE could make our own determinations as to the veracity of each case.
AND......I take the testimony of republican insiders with a massive grain of salt as well. Who are these insiders? What is their agenda? Are they Never Trump types or perhaps are they attempting to rebuild their DC careers and social circles? Are any of them attempting to avoid indictment for something? WHO on that panel is asking those questions? Who is challenging the witnesses? ........Nobody.
And there in lies the problem.
Well, I haven’t heard anything specific to your hypothetical objections have been raised by Trump or his supporters - and it’s not as if they are under oath or reticent to comment.
Nothing prevented McCarthy from proposing persons uninvolved in the “Stop the Steal” strategizing or who communicated directly with the WH on 1/6. That was a deliberate choice. Deal with it.
Deal with it?
That is your response?
My points are valid. Dismissing them without recognizing any element of their validity and without a counterargument is simply being stubborn.
If you have a different POV that is fine but make an argument for your position.
You COULD have argued that my points were valid BUT.......
You could challenge the relevancy of my position re: the "republican insiders". Maybe you have facts to support why they should be taken seriously. Now maybe I will not agree with your argument, but you are not even bothering to try and simply dismissing my concerns.
Precisely how does that shift the needle on anything?
Deal with it was a response to McCarthy’s miscalculation in dealing with the committee staffing, something even Trump has called him on.
As to your position, in the abstract the points you raise are valid. Given that there’s been no evidence to support them is the issue I have.
"It has no credibility" - except for the willfully blind and ivy indoctrinated and thus utterly ignorant youth, which are sadly legion. Wrung Out Lemon - your post nailed it for me. Excellent.
Don’t think that would work think you need Trump with De Santis and then a De Santis/.... for 2028 he would have had enough time to keep Trump’s policies going forward
As much as I agree with Trump on a lot of policies, I never LIKED the man.
Then too, I think he would come into office less focused on getting things done than on attempting to prove that he got screwed and looking to retaliate. Not worth it.
We need calm and civility if we are ever going to get through these insane times. Trump instinctively is a grenade thrower. Now he is one with a big grudge.
DeSantis is bright and has a sense of humor. Substantively he is close to Trump but without the baggage and with a far more palatable style.
Trump served his purpose, that being to shake up the political system and alter the direction of the DC narrative. HE was the grenade that WE launched into DC. But now it is time to end the war with a negotiated settlement. Trump would simply want to perpetuate the uncivil war.
Yup. Again - I came to those same conclusions. My primary complaint policy wise was his refusal to work the Trans-Pacific Partnership. By trying to "go it alone" against China he lost a chance to build alignment and more actively resist China's desire for regional hegemony.
I would not trust Trump to watch my kids nor see him as a good influence on them. But his policies for the most part were dead on. My favorite article ever was the WSJ's "What if Trump were sane" which essentially said he could have been one of our best presidents if not for his narcissism and moral failings.
Yep.
Lemon—well stated. Thanks
Overall well said. But I would note that many of Trump's own people (his attorney general Barr etc did investigate, said there was nothing there).
I'm less sympathetic to (some of) Trump's policies than you, and I always suspected it was risky to elect him even if I'd been more fully in agreement, because of the danger that he could do something unhinged (which he proved in the end after the 2020 election), and because his rhetoric was unnecessarily nasty and divisive, and a president's rhetoric matters.
However, I appreciate much of what you say here. It shows an ability to "keep two thoughts in one's mind at the same time," which is increasingly rare.
I was impressed with her testimony, but there may be a problem. In the western edition of the ABC news cast, there was breaking news that the Secret Service is demanding time to come before the committee to testify. Apparently, they will testify that Trump did not lunge at the agents in the car when they refused to take him to the capitol. Here is the link to the broadcast. The relevant reporting starts at about the 13:45 mark.
https://abc.com/shows/world-news-tonight/episode-guide/2022-06/28-tue-jun-28-2022
I am a former prosecutor and public defender. If the SS agents do testify as indicated, and then also testify that they did not say what she says they said, her testimony may be rendered worthless. I still don't know why they rushed this testimony, but it may be that they did before having checked her story with the agents involved. If that is the case, this could be a serious blunder. I hate to think of what Hutchinson's life will be like, and what damage this could do to the committee if the agents contradict her. The Trumpers will be screaming that she be indicted for lying to Congress. Her testimony in this regard was hearsay anyway and should have been avoided if it had not been verified by the agents involved.
May be rendered worthless? How about a perjury prosecution? No, of course, not. Because that's not how these things work. Beria's ghost is laughing at how the Democrats have adopted his methods.
I don’t think she would have technically perjured herself. She was repeating hearsay - which makes her testimony completely worthless in court - but a la Ms. Ford, the sting of the accusations will never be forgotten by those that hate Trump and will be used to smear him forever in the press.
I see “show trial” is the new talking point to avoid grappling with the substance.
As a former prosecutor, please allow me to explain why there is no perjury in Hutchinson’s narrative about what occurred in the “Beast” as she was clear and careful about what she said.
She was testifying to what she heard. Had this been in a court of law and a hearsay objection made, the objection could be overruled and the jury instructed that the testimony is admitted not for the truth of the underlying statement (that what she was told about what happened in the “Beast” was true) but that she heard what she heard. Her statement that the person who was present both in the “Beast” and in the room with her did not contradict the story is not hearsay. If that person testified, one line of cross-examination could be whether he even heard the conversation at which he was present. But there’s no hearsay.
It would, of course, be helpful if all potential witnesses testified (including, though it’s a minor if colorful point, the poor WH valet who supposedly had to clean ketchup off the dining room wall). But it seems to me that the GOP has a choice to participate fully. Anyway, let’s now see who is willing to step forward and display even a modicum of the courage shown by a 25 year old woman. Pat Cipollone would be good as a starter.
Charles - what’s shocking is that as a “former prosecutor”, you can’t recognize the difference between a pseudo grand jury made-for-TV show - and an actual congressional inquiry seeking the truth about J6. No cross examination, carefully edited video clips, mostly hearsay testimony and no rebuttal witnesses. The bad news is that the huddled masses aren’t watching - and those who are watching ain’t buying what Lizzy is selling - present company excepted.
The “rebuttal” witnesses seem mostly to fall into two categories at the moment: those who refuse to cooperate and those who plead the Fifth.
If this is the political show trial that some claim, wouldn’t the best way to diminish its credibility be for those with first hand knowledge publicly demand to testify under oath and without conditions? That would certainly be impressive but we all know that’s not going to happen.
The larger picture that is emerging is that everyone in Trump’s inner circle told him there was no evidence of fraud or anything else that might call the election results into question. Theories of what might have been without any supporting evidence are worthless, beyond their fundraising appeal - which is how Trump amassed some $250 million from credulous supporters.
Former prosecutor? So this is your dream I suppose. You make your case, and there's no pesky defense or due process. It's like the Detroit Lions going 16-0 because there's no opposing team on the field. They just set up and march down the field winning games by a score of 180-0.
I admit, even without opposition the Lions probably would be 8-8, but I digress.
I must be doing something wrong. Apparently my comment was so boring that you never made it to my final paragraph.
Sorry, but some people that were close to him does not constitute 'everyone in his inner circle'. And someone saying 'you lost the election' is far different than 'there was a lot of mischief going on that resulted in you losing the vote count'. Many in his inner circle (and me) felt that this was perhaps the least credible election in the history of the country. For you not to understand and concede that is simply illogical.
The Secret Service agents involved are "GOP"?
No idea of their political allegiance or how you might have derived that from anything I wrote.
I'm sorry you're a Lions ...... said the Packers fan. ;)
Yeah, it sucks. Born/Raised in Detroit, but I've had some great rides with the Pistons, Wings, Tigers and Wolverines (class of '79) though. But to think that over the last thirty years the Lions had, imho, the goat RB, and future all of famers in Calvin Johnson and Matt Stafford and could never manage a decent season, is just wrong. When you're a Lions fan, you don't tune in to see them win, just to see how close they can get.
Well we have an overpaid QB that can't close the deal. I think Aaron needs to figure out a lot of personal stuff if he ever wants another SB ring.
Her life? She will be a darling of the Left. Someone will set up a GoFundMe and within a few hours it'll have over $1 million in it, shades of Blasey Ford. Next she'll resurface working for CNN or MSNBC or some far Left NGO.
MSNBC future host
Exactly this. When I first heard the accusations, I thought “She’s overselling it and it’s going to backfire.”
And the quip about “AR-15s” is too on the nose to be believable. It’s testimony calculated to be effective in the current news environment and not true to 1/6. Why not rifles? Assault Weapons? Pistols? Nope, AR-15s.
You are correct. It's the latest narrative.
The Democrats are desperate David Joe’s rating are so low there is nobody in the wings for 2024 it’s the same shitty line up as 2020 who is going to vote for them
There is also a statement today about the provenance of a handwritten note Ms. Hutchinson testified that she personally penned. The statement is from a person who claims to have written the note themselves. https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-white-house-attorney-disputes-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony/story?id=85898838
I believe from personal experience that the US Secret Service Protective Division is one of the most professional and effective organizations in the government. If you were the person responsible for the President's in-vehicle security, would you accept a vehicle where an occupant could interfere with the driver? Think about that.
If Ms. Hutchinson's testimony is found to be materially false, will this author follow up and say she was misled? I'm betting she will.
Either that, or maybe the January 6th show trial is simply a "fake because," providing cover for what one already wants to believe.
Excellent point (have not seen it anywhere else) about the SS agent accepting a car in which someone could interfere with the driver.
This is not at all a fair representation of what has gone on. Sorry but you have been hoodwinked. Your initial thoughts were correct but some how you fell for the production. Not to mention he was already impeached over this crap and this is a politically motivated sideshow. I have lot of respect for you But this is a total misreading of the situation.
An interesting article. I haven’t watched the hearings but would be happy if the outcome was to prevent Trump from running again. Republicans will have several excellent candidates who will carry on Trump’s policies without Trump’s personal baggage..
As a lawyer, the article demonstrates to me the greatest flaw of the process which is the absence of any meaningful questioning of what was presented. Republicans on the committee were selected by Pelosi in defiance of convention, rather than McCarthy. I view the hearings as a stage show, some of which may be true and some not. The author relies for her conclusion in part on yesterday’s testimony by Ms. Hutchinson. That testimony has already been debunked in part, and maybe in whole, by several sources, including NBC and CNN. The ability for Republicans to cross examine witnesses and present other facts might have produced a very different, and more credible, story for the American people. Unfortunately, we will never know.
Agreed, the Committee lost all legitimacy when Republicans were not allowed to choose their own representation.
Nancy picked her allies to pretend to be balanced, and it's profoundly dishonest for leftists to act like this was fair.
Literally a Kangaroo court.
I usually love the articles on this site and the unique and differing perspectives offered, but this one right here is just a waste of words and adds no value to the conversation.
First off, Cassie Hutchinson has provided 4 recorded depositions. Here "explosive" testimony was not some last minute bombshell. It was all a ploy to drive up floundering ratings by a desperate Democratic Party and their communication wing - the main stream media. What's more, the Secret Service has given recorded statements that haven't been played, and Engel, the head of Trump's security team, and the limousine driver are saying they'll directly testify that he never grabbed the wheel or assaulted them. She's a scorned ex-aide who wasn't retained by Trump post-WH. I'd take her testimony with a grain of salt especially since not one Congressperson is on the committee to cross examine her.
We already knew Trump pressured state election officials, Mike Pence, and the GOP writ large to "stop the steal." We knew his rhetoric was inflammatory, undemocratic, and unAmerican, and we already knew that the institutions held because the election was certified 3 hours after the rioters entered the Capitol building and he's no longer the President. We knew Trump had an ugly and immoral disdain for Mike Pence especially when the rioters started chanting to hang him.
We knew Trump knew or should've known that his allegations we're baseless. He lost every court cases in which he challenged the results. Does knowing that those closest to him told him so add anything of real value? Does it justify this massive waste or words, time, and taxpayer money? I'd emphatically answer no. And this author is just now learning that Trump was a narcissist and is shocked that he, or any of our politicians, and all about "me, me, me?" Please stop it!
The predetermined verdict of the January 6th committee is that Trump is directly responsible for the riot, yet they haven't connected the dots and they won't. If they could've, it would've been the lead. We're 4 or 5 hearings in and still nothing. It's a carefully crafted kangaroo court to elicit an emotional response to Trump in preparation of the midterms. It's playing politics at the taxpayer expense aided and abetted by a complicit media meant to elicit emotional responses and worthless pieces of commentary like this.
Also another distraction from the fact that the committee members have all lied to us constantly about Trump for five years, and they're still telling lies.
The way to connect the dots to Trump will be to have the testimony of those closest to the matter. Some like Cipollone and Meadows refuse while others like Eastman have taken the Fifth. The hearings aren’t over and we should see what happens.
The problem is the committee has no credibility or semblance of care for the truth. When Nancy Pelosi blocked the Republican appointees, it lost any credibility. If your position is so solid and impeachable, why not allow even the slightest pushback? If the stated goal is to prevent another January 6th, why is it anathema to look at the security failures on that day? Why only appoint Republicans that are sympathetic to your narrative and have no desire to give it an ounce of scrutiny? On top of that, you're investigating the "Big Lie" yet you have multiple committee members, including the chairman, who have all voted against certification of a Republican presidential election. And even more to the point, you placed Adam Schiff on the committee after he spent years lying about a Russia collusion based on information bought and spread to federal law enforcement and the media by the DNC and the Clinton campaign including Hillary herself that he knew was false all while promising more than circumstantial evidence. The credibility was shot the moment the committee was formed.
Also, for years we've endured leak after leak, yet nothing from this committee. Not one leak. Not even a referral to the DOJ. Nothing. We're 4-5 hearings in and nothing about a Trump-rioters connection. No competent politician or media source would bury the lead the way this committee has.
Then yesterday they bring out your bombshell witness and within 5 minutes there's wide spread reporting that she lied about several of her allegations. Did they not even take a moment to verify her accounts after any one of her 4 depositions or before you trumpet her out on live television? And why not release the full transcripts? It's because no testimony matters, just the narrative. And the fact that we haven't heard any direct or consequential connection between Trump and the rioters shows that the explicit claim is even a bridge too far for this kangaroo court. But you keep holding out hope, and in the meantime I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
"Then yesterday they bring out your bombshell witness and within 5 minutes there's wide spread reporting that she lied about several of her allegations."
The "widespread reporting that she lied" is the problem, not Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony of hearing about an incident that she never claimed to witness herself.
And of the witnesses who have been called thus far, the ones I'd refer to as "bombshell witnesses" are Greg Jacobs and Judge Michael Luttig, who appeared on June 16. https://www.c-span.org/video/?520944-1/president-trumps-campaign-influence-vice-president-pence
With all due respect to Cassidy Hutchinson- who testified under oath, which means that everyone accusing her of lying is implicitly alleging that she's perjured herself- her appearance was media-friendly clickbait, compared to the much more substantive testimony of Jacobs and Luttig. We're dealing with postmodern news bureaus that evidently no longer know the difference.
I'm not sure what else you would call 1) saying you wrote a note you didn't write and 2) "overheard" a conversation about an event that never happened. And the problem is, when you tell outright lies, the rest of your testimony is and should be discredited. And when the J6 committee doesn't bother to verify a witness' testimony and that witness is proved to have told lies, their credibility is reasonably called into question. In fact, in most criminal proceedings, a jury is instructed that they are able to ignore a witness' testimony if they are shown to have been untruthful. Why should it be different with this committee?
In regards to the witnesses you mentioned, they've added nothing of substance to the conversation. It's been known for a long while that Trump pressured Pence (which I think was beyond ridiculous and inexcusable mind you). Hell he tweeted about it. What did they present that draws a direct connection between Trump and the rioters? I'll wait.
""I'm not sure what else you would call 1) saying you wrote a note you didn't write and 2) "overheard" a conversation about an event that never happened. And the problem is, when you tell outright lies, the rest of your testimony is and should be discredited..."
Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath; if she's obviously lied, as you're implying, not only is her testimony discredited, she can be indicted for perjury. I haven't heard anyone calling for her to be indicted for perjury.
I have heard a lot of insinuations that Cassidy Hutchinson is lying. The people casting those aspersions don't even have a plausible motive for her to confabulate her sworn testimony, much less evidence that she has done so.
It's common for people to overhear (minus irony quotes)- or to just plain hear- reports of events at secondhand from other people which they have no way of verifying. That's normal, verging on ubiquitous.
The Washington Post reports that the Secret Service agents disputing Hutchinson's account are expected to be directed by their superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to testify before the committee. If that occurs, the testimony they provide with also be under oath, and liable to perjury charges if it can be shown that any of their statements are false.
I never mentioned perjury because her almost her entire testimony was hearsay evidence, which 1) is not allowed in an actual court and 2) how do you prove someone committed perjury when they're recounting hearsay evidence? It's a tricky legal situation way above my paygrade.
There has been a plausible motive given: she was original reported to be staying on with Trump per the NYT I believe, but then he denied her a position. Could she be a scorned ex-aide or a courageous truth teller? We don't know because there's no one on the committee who is willing to cross examine her and get to the root of her motives. Instead, everyone is left to retreat to their own camps. And that is a fundamental flaw of the Committee and why, except for those firmly fixed in the Democrats camp, these hearings haven't moved the needle.
I agree the Secret Service agent should give sworn, televised statements to directly refute her testimony. If I'm not mistaken, they've been cooperating, but amazingly we haven't seen or heard any previous statements. And you insinuate that these agents should provide testimony under penalty of perjury to see if "it can be shown that any of their statements are false" but you're so willing to accept Cassidy Hutchinson's without an ounce of scrutiny. This is why we have an adversarial legal system in America, so that each side has an equal chance to scrutinize the evidence and witness testimony, but you're implying (and I'm not trying to straw man here) that it should be entirely one sided. This is why the majority of Americans, myself included, don't care much for this kangaroo court.
BRAVO!
Charles I really, really want you to answer this
For some reason (perhaps related to the fact that my phone is old) I can see when a comment comes in but can’t get to the comment directly.
What I’ll say in response is the following. If I follow Brad C’s argument then the 1/6 committee was created to be a hit job and yet managed to bungle it all by burying the lede. Maybe. But it’s clear (and even Trump agrees but for different reasons) that McCarthy miscalculated in his handling of the staffing issues. Sworn testimony has more credibility than unsworn statements and, to channel Giuliani, theories without supporting evidence are useless.
I do agree that if a criminal case is to be made against Trump, the dots must be connected between him and, for instance, the Proud Boys. If that connection cannot be made because Trump was uninvolved, or if whether he knew can’t be established because (1) the war room at the Waverley Hotel that we hear about was set up in such a way as to insulate Trump from direct knowledge - though maybe not Meadows, Giuliani and Stone to name only an obvious few or (2) the Proud Boys or whomever did act entirely on their own, then knowing these things would still be in the public interest.
I would be curious to hear the details of Trump’s meeting(s) and discussions with the various Congresspersons who strategized with him about “Stop the Steal” which led to the testimony attributed to Trump that he wanted the DOJ to announce that an investigation into fraud in the election was opened and that he and his Congressional allies would take it from there. I find that sworn testimony very troubling.
The investigation and hearings continue as does at least one federal grand jury proceeding, so at this moment, the jury’s out.
Here's my whole thing with the J6 Committee, why is it necessary? As you stated there is a federal grand jury proceeding. I too am eager to see what comes of not only a grand jury investigation but any trial that may result from it. I am by no means a Trumper - I'm actually an independent - and if he or anyone else committed a crime, that person should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The J6 Committee does not come close to the legitimacy of a criminal proceeding and is a purely political exercise. There's no due process, cross examination of evidence and witnesses, or transparency of the full evidentiary record, which are hallmarks of our judicial system. As such, we're getting only one side of the coin and a carefully crafted version it at that. It's all cherry-picked clips and carefully selected live testimony. Also, there's purely political actors with obvious motives to lie and manipulate, and who have, in fact, spent years doing so. It doesn't even have the legitimacy of an actual select committee because its end is not ordered towards oversight or legislative, which are the only purview of Congress. Thus, unless they release all of the evidence in total, without the political aggrandizing, theatrics, and media production, I am highly skeptical of anything this committee has to offer.
To end on some common ground, I am curious just as you are about the meetings and discussions that occurred.
The House Committee is on the same fact-finding mission as many other Congressional hearings. The widely televised hearings have already led more witnesses to volunteer their sworn testimony (it's highly unlikely that limiting the inquiry to a closed grand jury proceeding would produce a similar result.) I find the hearings to consist of newsworthy information that's germane to a very serious situation; after all, never in American history has a mob stormed the US Capitol. Moreover, that violent protest was carried out with the explicit political goal of disrupting the transfer of power from the incumbent President to the newly elected one, with the goal of keeping the defeated incumbent in office.
That adds some extra features to the situation that elevate it above the scope of an ordinary riot, and I don't get how Americans who continually offer comparisons to other civil disorders don't grasp the extra significance of violent rioters storming the US Capitol while the Congress was in chambers with the explicit goal of shutting down their Constitutionally ordained mission that day, an effort that was only thwarted inside the building by the resort to deadly force by police at a hallway barrier was practically the last line of defense. The consequence of public Congressional hearings on those events is entirely in order. It dismays me that any member of the American public disagrees with that view, much less members of Congress.
As I've already said, I think Speaker Pelosi blundered terribly by refusing to accept GOP House Minority leader McCarthy's full slate of Republicans. But that doesn't turn the hearing into a witch hunt. Nor does it discredit the sworn testimony offered by the witnesses. I don't think that the selection of witnesses can be accurately called "cherry-picked" when the witnesses themselves are refusing to offer their sworn testimony- as is the case with former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who has not only refused to testify but whose lawyers are currently fighting the release of his cellphone records for January 6, when Hutchinson testified that he spent a substantial amount of time scrolling through his phone at the time that the Capitol protests were getting out of hand.
Of course there's "media production"-it's a television broadcast. Of course there's a theatrical element. Of course there's drama. None of those elements discredit the hearings, per se. In fact, if the 2 candidates from McCarthy's slate of 5 that were rejected by Pelosi were on the panel, there would have been even more theatricality and political aggrandizement. And this is a case where I would have welcomed it.
(I've watched several hours of these hearings; it's worth noting that thus far, I've noticed very little bloviation by the House members, who are content to question witnesses with a minimum of irrelevant grandstanding. at least while in session. As such, the 1/6 hearings have provided a marked contrast to the rhetorical windiness associated with so many other publicly televised Congressional committee hearings I've watched/listened to over the years on C-Span, on topics ranging from coal regulations to Presidential impeachment referrals.)
As someone who has frequently been a critic of Nancy Pelosi's decisions as Speaker of the House over the years, to me her refusal to accept the entire slate offered by Kevin McCarthy is just another example of political ineptitude; not only did she provide the pretext for most of the GOP to disdain the hearings, she also provided an excuse for tens of millions of Trump voters to justify not paying any attention to their content. In my amateur, non-politico, ex-cabdriver opinion, those are precisely the folks who most need to tune in to the proceedings. But notwithstanding my bewilderment over Pelosi's decision, it doesn't automatically discredit the testimony offered in the hearings, or the questions being asked. The actual content is well worth reviewing. https://www.c-span.org/search/?sdate=&edate=&congressSelect=&yearSelect=&searchtype=Videos&sort=Most+Recent+Event&text=0&sponsorid%5B%5D=139816&formatid%5B%5D=26
👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you!
I await the Congressional hearings on Hunter Biden’s laptop and his business dealings with enemy states that included his father.
Plus the widespread censorship of this information and what that means about the health of our democracy.
And Covid origins?
Starting in January. Stay tuned.
Common Sense? Nah, Nonsense. Who informed the President about the AR-15s; and exactly how did that person know that information? This is critical because reporting by Julie Kelly indicates that no one was armed. I would also question the source of the information because reporting by Revolver News and others suggest that the FBI infiltrated the groups participating in the demonstration. See Ray Epps. Ms. Batya is an astute observer and her wrenching "realization" about J6 is genuine, but is she being snookered by the spectacle of the hearing - and such performers as Raskin, Schiff, and Cheney - without asking herself was the President right? Maybe, just maybe, the President had had enough of impeachment, collusion, resistance, and the deep state. Subsequent information indicates a lot of chicanery about the election, not least Zuckbucks, 2000 Mules, the Feb 2021 Time report by Molly Ball, and the reporting of Julie Kelly. take a very deep breath Ms. Batya. the final chapter to these hearings is yet to be written.
I agree prepare for the ride it’s going to be very bumpy
EXACTLY
"reporting by Julie Kelly indicates that no one was armed"
Armed with firearms, I presume is the claim. Because it's clear beyond any doubt that many of the rioters were armed with all sorts of other weapons.
What makes Julie Kelly so omniscient that she observed the entire scope of the demonstration?
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.225682/gov.uscourts.dcd.225682.5.0_5.pdf
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1351686/download
Batya,
I think you’re an amazing woman whose opinion I greatly respect. I agree that there are things I’ve learned about Trump from direct testimony of these witnesses that I did not know and I do not think Trump is fit for office. At the same time I am so offended by the one-sided, holier-than-thou nature of the committee members. A few of whom voted to overturn the results of the 2016 election! What the heck? I also don’t know what to make of the security detail that day who are willing to testify that Trump didn’t want to go to the Capitol. The whole hearing would have meant so much more if it weren’t so one-sided. Every time I tune in I can’t help but think wouldn’t it be great id we had another committee spectacle event like this one with slick editing and the reveal of taped testimonials of Sudan Rice and Obama and Comey and Clapper etc who set Trump up with the Christopher Steele dossier and on and on. I’d love to see an enactment of the behind the scenes conversations and planning that went into that insurrection!!! It’s all terrible.
Amen
I have not watched the hearings. They are made-for-TV propaganda and a distraction from the daily horrors created by the current administration. The only evidence I need to support that assertion is Pelosi’s unprecedented refusal to seat Republican-nominated members to the Committee, and abandon the constructive adversarial process that is a hallmark of our legislative and judicial systems.
After five years of being demonized, falsely accused, and thwarted at nearly every turn in his Presidency, I can understand any man’s frustration boiling over into conduct that is nonetheless unacceptable. And for someone as narcissistic as Trump it’s almost predictable.
However, the riot on January 6 still has too many questions unanswered: why was an unarmed woman shot and killed? Why were the Capitol police so unprepared? Why did Nancy Pelosi refuse additional security support? Were there covert government agents in the crowd, and what did they do to incite or stop the attack? Why have those accused of participating been jailed and subjected to abuse in confinement while Antifa members who burned, murdered, plundered multiple cities gone largely unpunished?
I want a President who will be a statesman, an honorable exemplar for the country, a person of temperance, common sense, and integrity. The hearings are going to do nothing to achieve that.
yeah, Pelosi's move to my knowledge has NEVER before happened. Nor should it happen again.
Wow! What a load! Whatever happened to verifying? This writer needs to write one more column then step down. What banal tripe!
In fact I think no last column this was it
I haven’t watched the hearings and still won’t. I voted for Trump twice knowing that he was a somewhat unfiltered narcissist. I hope he doesn’t run again as he is getting old and his style is stale. From what I’ve read these hearings and the committee are 100% biased so I still have no reason to watch. My only question is will the libs and Dems still want to impeach Trump 20 years after he’s dead.
"My only question is will the libs and Dems still want to impeach Trump 20 years after he’s dead." .... this so so funny 😂
I don’t want to vote for him either, but if they keep this stupid stuff up, I will personally throw myself at his feet and beg him to run. What I’d love is some bipartisan ticket, preferably with two ladies because It’s time we inject that into the office, but I’d take an asexual cocker spaniel with a lisp and three legs if it made this nonsense stop.
Just turn on CNN or MSNBC and what is their lead story? Illegals dying in a truck? Ukraine? Primary results in several states? Nope. Some woman overheard some stuff and presented it as fact.
Americans are being hyponotized, brain washed. Idiots.
Stalin's "Useful idiots"
Amazing how many refuse to see Trump for what he is - a narcissistic bully who tried to bully other republicans to break the law. Do you also believe he won the election? Is your hate of the Democrats keeping you from seeing reality. Most of the evidence is coming from Republicans. It’s sad to watch what Trump has done to the Republican Party.
I do not know if Trump won the 2020 election. What I do know is that the 2020 election was illegitimate. Reason number 1: the wide spread censorship of the Biden laptop story, not discussed on mainstream media and literally banned from social media.
This is honestly bizarre to me, as I don't know a single right-winger who does NOT openly acknowledge Trump's narcissism.
No, I think this comment is a reflection of your ignorance of Republicans, not a reflection of the actual people.
What I see is that conservatives universally acknowledge their moral issues with Trump, while liberals absolutely refuse to publicly criticize the abundant and ongoing evils in their party.
Case in point, Adam Schiff acknowledging he spread lies about Trump for years and would do it again.
If you don't have a problem with that, Al, and you think he and his cohorts are trustworthy after they publicly acknowledged they are not.....I really don't know what to say to you
I've read, watched, and observed the behavior or Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, AOC, Chuck Schumer, and others in "responding to" or "questioning" congressional testimony. It was the most frightening, eye opening experience of my adult political life. Regan was absolutely correct when he said "we can lose our republic in one generation."
Of course I don't think it is all right. I can't stand Adam schiff. Not sure what makes you an expert on Republicans but in my humble opinion, Trump asisde from his narcissicm, is morally corrupt and his impact on the Republican party has been a disaster. He only lasted one term and rightfully so. Hopefully a new candidate with some ethical standards will run and win for the Republicans.
He's the first president in history to not start a military engagement and instead created successful peace treaties in the Middle East. His was the most pro-peace administration of my lifetime, and they were successfully holding Putin at bay. I can't fathom how you're glad we changed that.
Trump created a more diverse Republican Party and gained record support from Blacks and other minorities. How exactly is that a disaster? If Democrats truly believed in diversity they would give Trump credit for making Republicans more diverse.
Things like this are why I can't respect the Trump hate anymore, especially when it was crafted by five years of willful lies, conspiracy theories, and hate-mongering propaganda from sore Democrat losers.
You make some good points, but under Trump, the party has shifted to the extreme right. His diversifiction of the party was there but minimal. It's a big country. Surely we can find a good candidate with Trumps fiscal policies that is not morraly corrupt.
This is a dangerous fallacy. Social polling on policy issues for twenty years have demonstrated that the right has changed very little, and the left has changed radically. In fact that even defines what "conservative" or "progressive" refers to.
Republicans didn't become radicals, Democrats did. You think they're extreme right because you can no longer see the middle. This isn't opinion, it's social science.
And it's not that I think Trump isn't morally corrupt - it's that I think Pence and others like him, doing the real work, are the best this country has. And I think every Democrat in the federal government is incompetent and lacking in any ethical integrity.
Want to change my mind? Boycott China, or shut up about racism and slavery because you're actively empowering it.
Democrats have no competent or ethical leadership. Year by year, I learn more about their crimes and incompetence and it just gets worse. The passion and power with which their leadership have been shielding serial rapists is shocking, and the party is now raiding journalists for exposing it.
And you think giving them power is a moral improvement?
Suggesting that every Democrat in the Federal government is incompetent and lacking in any ethical integrity is simply nonsense. That tells me you are extreme right with no chance of sensible discussion. Agree to disagree.
Trump's policies were mid-century, mid-western union conservative Democrat.
These hearings are supposed to be about Jan 6, not presenting more evidence that Trump is a selfish asshole. We already know that. So far, the hearings have done little to explain how Jan 6 happened and instead focus on why we should all hate Trump. Same message we’ve heard from MSM media since 2016.
Trump is a narcissistic asshole. So is Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff. This is political theater, just like the Russia hearings and the impeachment hearings. They are staffed by the same folks by and large, with the same goals. We see things very clearly. It’s you who are frustrated we don’t agree with you.