Success of the 1/6 insurrection committee will ONLY be determined when 45 and his minions are indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned. These fascists are tearing apart our democratic country.
The two hour January 6 Hearings on Thursday evening, June 9, were enthralling. The opening statements by Chairman Bennie Thompson and Co-chair Liz Cheney were brilliant. Testimony by Officer Edwards revealed uncanny bravery, and there was not a dull moment in the program.
My take away from today's discussion was YAY!! at last, someone with influence is telling the Democrats to get some courage, forget about collecting larger and larger pots of money and start telling the truth. It's corporate greed folks, not just supply chain not putin or Zelensky, You want prices lowered, tell corporate America, ENOUGH, If we have to return to victory gardens, if we have to let the Jones's have more crap than we do, so be it.
I understand what you're are saying that Trump will be held accountable in History. But won't an indictment send a more powerful message not only to the historians that will write this chapter of our history but also to those that sill adhere and cling to Trumpism.
Jun 11, 2022·edited Jun 11, 2022Liked by Heather Lofthouse
I really loved today's segment. It had me laughing out loud at times, in particular "the democrats are just wusses" comment. And when Heather said "shift the narrative" and you said it sounded like she had said "shit" through the mask, I couldn't help thinking about what was going on Fox during the hearings as they unabashedly "shit" on the committee's narrative. Right on, guys!
As for the hearing itself, it was spellbinding, all of it. It confirmed what I thought must be going on behind the scenes on Jan 6 but that had not yet been brought to the light of day, that this epic f**k up could be laid at the feet of TFG and those that enabled him. The testimony of Officer Edwards and the new footage that was provided brought me to tears, and brought me back to that day, where I watched as it happened live, just the surrealism of what was going on, not unlike the morning of 9/11 when I turned on the television in the morning to see one of the towers on fire and then a minute later watched as a second aircraft hit the second.
I can't wait to see what the follow on hearings bring to light!
If we end up using the 14 th Amendment to keep anyone with a connection to the insurrection from holding public office that will show the value of these presentations of the January 6 committee and it could very well stop the erosion of our republic and our Constitution.
Supposedly 20 million Americans watched the first presentation of what happened, by the Jan 6 committee. That's apparently as many viewers as turn in to see the NFL playoffs. The forthcoming second public session of the committee will not take place in prime time (commercials before democracy, you know - it's the American way) but rather in the morning on Monday, and we'll learn much from the size of the viewership and the media coverage of the event.
The "conversion", as it's called, of first public presentation viewers to the second presentation will indicate, as it always does in series, the impact of the initial public hearing and give us an idea of how many people will hang around for the subsequent hearings.
Apparently the committee knew that it needed to have a very strong and gripping presentation in its first public hearing. We'll see this Monday whether they were effective.
Personally, my hope is that the public hearings settle into a high level of viewership and take hold of the news cycle. I am hopeful that from this point forward, positive events and actions regarding the insurrection increase in number and severity. One that I noticed has already started to occur is fewer uses of the word "riot" to describe what went on at the Capitol and an increase in the use of the terms "insurrection" and "attempted coup." These are initial and very positive indicators of the effect of the first hearing.
I should add that this morning I checked Fox News online for any coverage of the Jan 6 committee hearing, and of course it was virtually all negative, with the comments by readers enough to really make your blood boil. The "riot", you know, was really the fault, the failure of the Capitol police and nothing else. I considered putting my own viewpoint into the comments but reluctantly decided to avoid all the negativity and personal attacks that would result. Call me chicken, but I don't need that level of nastiness on a Saturday morning.
Success of the January 6 committee can be claimed if they do an excellent job in informing the public. So far, so good.
I think all Democratic members of Congress and candidates could help amplify the message if they were as relentless about presenting the truthful narrative about January 6 as Republicans are about repeating their lies.
House Republicans are doing a parallel partisan "investigation" to determine why there was so little security that the police were overwhelmed. They have been blaming Nancy Pelosi, even though Mitch McConnell had equal responsibility, and, as we saw, alleged Commander-in-Chief Trump sat back and did nothing.
This led me to thinking that Republicans aren't proactive in preventing problems or responding appropriately, with respect to many issues. For example, why should the U.S. Capitol have to become a fortress to protect it from a rampaging mob of U.S. citizens, who were incited by the President of the United States? Why should schools be turned into hardened prisons where children shake in fear of being shot by a zealous gun toter or beaten up by school police, when restricting access to guns would solve the problem? Why do Republicans respond to inflation by blaming Biden and lobbying to build a pipeline that will do nothing to mitigate inflation? And their solution for crime is to lock up as many Black people as possible (thereby denying them the right to vote).
For me, the immediate success of the House Select Committee's hearings would be the infiltration of truth into the narratives carried by Trump supporters. I know so many families literally torn apart by Trump's spin. Of course, it must not stop there, but that would be the beginning, and may it be a veritable avalanche of consequences! I am deeply grateful to all the members of the Committee. Their work is superlative.
I think this is a great question, is there any way to read the podcast transcript? I'm Deaf and can't follow along. Thanks for the refreshing, honest email everyday!
In the early years of the Obama administration, a decision was made not to investigate and hold accountable Bush administration officials responsible for torture and other crimes. (So much for Obama’s 2008 campaign promises about investigating wrongdoing and upholding the rule of law.)
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder explained to GQ in 2010: "You only want to look back at a previous administration if you feel you really have to. . . . Because it has a potentially chilling effect. If people who work in this administration today think that four years from now, or eight years from now, the decisions they make are going to be examined by a successor administration, you don't want that to happen. So that's a political consideration."
In his 2011 book “With Liberty and Justice for Some,” Glenn Greenwald claimed that what was going on there was part of a longstanding pattern: “By protecting their predecessors, politicians preserve and strengthen a culture in which illegal activity by the powerful goes unpunished, thus ensuring that they too can commit crimes while in office.”
Hopefully current Attorney General Merrick Garland won’t follow the pattern by using such political, low, and self-serving reasoning to give Trump and other high-level Republicans a pass concerning Jan. 6.
I’m worried that the only success will be measured in the historical record, and that as a last gasp of democracy in our republic, if we can’t find a way to persuade young people that any vote for the GOP who believe the election was stolen is a vote for a toxic form of government that will be worse than the uncomfortable inflation of the moment.
There's plenty more to come from the J6 committee. I honestly believe the country will explode if trump is not held accountable for his actions. His cronies need to be held accountable too.
Success of the 1/6 insurrection committee will ONLY be determined when 45 and his minions are indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned. These fascists are tearing apart our democratic country.
Please continue your good work and wise advice. We NEED it!
The two hour January 6 Hearings on Thursday evening, June 9, were enthralling. The opening statements by Chairman Bennie Thompson and Co-chair Liz Cheney were brilliant. Testimony by Officer Edwards revealed uncanny bravery, and there was not a dull moment in the program.
My take away from today's discussion was YAY!! at last, someone with influence is telling the Democrats to get some courage, forget about collecting larger and larger pots of money and start telling the truth. It's corporate greed folks, not just supply chain not putin or Zelensky, You want prices lowered, tell corporate America, ENOUGH, If we have to return to victory gardens, if we have to let the Jones's have more crap than we do, so be it.
I understand what you're are saying that Trump will be held accountable in History. But won't an indictment send a more powerful message not only to the historians that will write this chapter of our history but also to those that sill adhere and cling to Trumpism.
I really loved today's segment. It had me laughing out loud at times, in particular "the democrats are just wusses" comment. And when Heather said "shift the narrative" and you said it sounded like she had said "shit" through the mask, I couldn't help thinking about what was going on Fox during the hearings as they unabashedly "shit" on the committee's narrative. Right on, guys!
As for the hearing itself, it was spellbinding, all of it. It confirmed what I thought must be going on behind the scenes on Jan 6 but that had not yet been brought to the light of day, that this epic f**k up could be laid at the feet of TFG and those that enabled him. The testimony of Officer Edwards and the new footage that was provided brought me to tears, and brought me back to that day, where I watched as it happened live, just the surrealism of what was going on, not unlike the morning of 9/11 when I turned on the television in the morning to see one of the towers on fire and then a minute later watched as a second aircraft hit the second.
I can't wait to see what the follow on hearings bring to light!
Thanks to you both for what you do!
If we end up using the 14 th Amendment to keep anyone with a connection to the insurrection from holding public office that will show the value of these presentations of the January 6 committee and it could very well stop the erosion of our republic and our Constitution.
Supposedly 20 million Americans watched the first presentation of what happened, by the Jan 6 committee. That's apparently as many viewers as turn in to see the NFL playoffs. The forthcoming second public session of the committee will not take place in prime time (commercials before democracy, you know - it's the American way) but rather in the morning on Monday, and we'll learn much from the size of the viewership and the media coverage of the event.
The "conversion", as it's called, of first public presentation viewers to the second presentation will indicate, as it always does in series, the impact of the initial public hearing and give us an idea of how many people will hang around for the subsequent hearings.
Apparently the committee knew that it needed to have a very strong and gripping presentation in its first public hearing. We'll see this Monday whether they were effective.
Personally, my hope is that the public hearings settle into a high level of viewership and take hold of the news cycle. I am hopeful that from this point forward, positive events and actions regarding the insurrection increase in number and severity. One that I noticed has already started to occur is fewer uses of the word "riot" to describe what went on at the Capitol and an increase in the use of the terms "insurrection" and "attempted coup." These are initial and very positive indicators of the effect of the first hearing.
I should add that this morning I checked Fox News online for any coverage of the Jan 6 committee hearing, and of course it was virtually all negative, with the comments by readers enough to really make your blood boil. The "riot", you know, was really the fault, the failure of the Capitol police and nothing else. I considered putting my own viewpoint into the comments but reluctantly decided to avoid all the negativity and personal attacks that would result. Call me chicken, but I don't need that level of nastiness on a Saturday morning.
Success of the January 6 committee can be claimed if they do an excellent job in informing the public. So far, so good.
I think all Democratic members of Congress and candidates could help amplify the message if they were as relentless about presenting the truthful narrative about January 6 as Republicans are about repeating their lies.
House Republicans are doing a parallel partisan "investigation" to determine why there was so little security that the police were overwhelmed. They have been blaming Nancy Pelosi, even though Mitch McConnell had equal responsibility, and, as we saw, alleged Commander-in-Chief Trump sat back and did nothing.
This led me to thinking that Republicans aren't proactive in preventing problems or responding appropriately, with respect to many issues. For example, why should the U.S. Capitol have to become a fortress to protect it from a rampaging mob of U.S. citizens, who were incited by the President of the United States? Why should schools be turned into hardened prisons where children shake in fear of being shot by a zealous gun toter or beaten up by school police, when restricting access to guns would solve the problem? Why do Republicans respond to inflation by blaming Biden and lobbying to build a pipeline that will do nothing to mitigate inflation? And their solution for crime is to lock up as many Black people as possible (thereby denying them the right to vote).
You measure the success of the January 6 investigations by how many of Don Trump and his traitorous Republican co-conspirators get sent to prison.
Good morning! Scientist, conservationist, activist, Berkeley neighbor - Deborah Moore - would be a wonderful interview:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahxmoore
For me, the immediate success of the House Select Committee's hearings would be the infiltration of truth into the narratives carried by Trump supporters. I know so many families literally torn apart by Trump's spin. Of course, it must not stop there, but that would be the beginning, and may it be a veritable avalanche of consequences! I am deeply grateful to all the members of the Committee. Their work is superlative.
I think this is a great question, is there any way to read the podcast transcript? I'm Deaf and can't follow along. Thanks for the refreshing, honest email everyday!
In the early years of the Obama administration, a decision was made not to investigate and hold accountable Bush administration officials responsible for torture and other crimes. (So much for Obama’s 2008 campaign promises about investigating wrongdoing and upholding the rule of law.)
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder explained to GQ in 2010: "You only want to look back at a previous administration if you feel you really have to. . . . Because it has a potentially chilling effect. If people who work in this administration today think that four years from now, or eight years from now, the decisions they make are going to be examined by a successor administration, you don't want that to happen. So that's a political consideration."
In his 2011 book “With Liberty and Justice for Some,” Glenn Greenwald claimed that what was going on there was part of a longstanding pattern: “By protecting their predecessors, politicians preserve and strengthen a culture in which illegal activity by the powerful goes unpunished, thus ensuring that they too can commit crimes while in office.”
Hopefully current Attorney General Merrick Garland won’t follow the pattern by using such political, low, and self-serving reasoning to give Trump and other high-level Republicans a pass concerning Jan. 6.
I’m worried that the only success will be measured in the historical record, and that as a last gasp of democracy in our republic, if we can’t find a way to persuade young people that any vote for the GOP who believe the election was stolen is a vote for a toxic form of government that will be worse than the uncomfortable inflation of the moment.
There's plenty more to come from the J6 committee. I honestly believe the country will explode if trump is not held accountable for his actions. His cronies need to be held accountable too.