The hearings broadcast
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@Catseye3 said in The hearings broadcast:
@Mik said in The hearings broadcast:
That carefully orchestrated hit piece is a waste of airtime.
Horace was close: It's theater. It's the kind of theater we should be getting used to by now. (See Kavanaugh.)
If Jan 6 was a legitimate coup attempt by Republicans, then Republicans should be embarrassed. They need to attend classes in Insurrection 101. It was a bunch of selfie-mad yahoos who got themselves all frenzied up on social media. They knew fucking nothing. But since enough citizens have allowed themselves to get whipped into their outrage du jour over it, we are treated to hearings -- just like it's an actual serious thing.
Yep.
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The second omission? Oh, yeah — cross-examination.
That, if it had been allowed, would have entailed the presentation of perspectives contrary to, and potentially corrective of, the committee’s narrative. Notice that’s narrative, singular. Again, this is not a traditional investigation, much less a fact-finding exercise. It is not like a trial or a truly bipartisan probe, where advocates of adversary positions clash, and in that clash the picture sharpens and we learn what really happened.
See, we’re talking about a select committee. Under House rules, that means Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), a partisan Democrat who is rabidly anti-Trump, got to handpick the members. In a move Democrats will come to rue, Pelosi rejected the two-century norm that allows leadership of the minority party to choose which of its members will fill its allotted committee seats. As a technical matter of the rules, Pelosi had the power to do this — the resolution creating the committee, which Pelosi’s minions wrote, required her merely to “consult” with the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.), not accept his recommended appointments. She thus nixed his choice of two ardent pro-Trumpers, Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Jim Banks (R., Ind.) — which, predictably, induced McCarthy to reject any GOP participation and malign the committee as a political hit job.
In terms of the probe’s legitimacy, Pelosi’s despotic move is a blunder. Much of the country has no interest in the House’s January 6 investigation, even though a credible investigation of the Capitol riot should be a priority.
You can tell yourself I’m drinking the Trump Kool-Aid here, but it ain’t so. I think Trump should have been impeached and disqualified from holding future office. As I’ve argued, the January 6 committee is trying to do the impeachment investigation that derelict Democrats failed to do in January 2021. But that is not a worthy exercise unless the committee both admits that this is what it is doing and permits the mainstream Republican perspective to be represented.
In a normal fact-finding process, experienced prosecutors and committee majorities know that you don’t get to win 100-0. The other side has some points to score, and they get to score them. If the process is rigged to prevent that, it undermines the integrity of the probe.
Speaker Pelosi keeps saying she wanted a probe similar to the (vastly overrated) 9/11 Commission investigation. Well, anyone who lived through that circus can tell you that it is a staple of such investigations to scrutinize whether a catastrophe could have been avoided or mitigated if the pertinent government officials had performed competently. It is perfectly legitimate to look into military, intelligence, and law-enforcement failures. No investigation worthy of the name would shrink from that responsibility. Avoiding government failures just makes the committee look — yet again — like it is exaggerating the riot and Trump’s misconduct. That would be foolish because the riot was bad and Trump’s behavior was condemnable. But foolish appears to be where this is headed.
It appears that the January 6 committee is planning another half-dozen hearings. I’d like to think that, once out of the limelight and back working normal daytime hours, the committee will get down to business, like a real bipartisan, adversarial committee. Except it’s not a real bipartisan, adversarial committee. It’s the Insurrection
political narrative, brought to you by the same Democrats who gave you Collusion!"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Interesting factoid: In what Dems term an insurrection, in the country with the most privately owned guns on the planet, with the demographic that owns the most guns in that country, no firearms were found among the rioters.
Helluva insurrection, wasn't it?
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Well, at least CNN drew more viewers. Still didn't pass FOX"s normal programming...
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@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Mik said in The hearings broadcast:
Well, let's do a survey. Who here believes Trump would actually have hanged Pence if he could have?
Let's first do a survey for the question that no one (except you) answered. Who here thinks he said it?
Whether he meant it, if he said it, clearly I think he didn't. Unless he could use Trump Gallows(TM). He has a very long track record of saying things he didn't believe.
I think if he said it, which is plausible, he did not mean it. Which takes all the bite out of having said it.
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@George-K said in The hearings broadcast:
The second omission? Oh, yeah — cross-examination.
That, if it had been allowed, would have entailed the presentation of perspectives contrary to, and potentially corrective of, the committee’s narrative. Notice that’s narrative, singular. Again, this is not a traditional investigation, much less a fact-finding exercise. It is not like a trial or a truly bipartisan probe, where advocates of adversary positions clash, and in that clash the picture sharpens and we learn what really happened.
See, we’re talking about a select committee. Under House rules, that means Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), a partisan Democrat who is rabidly anti-Trump, got to handpick the members. …
Bla bla bla … McCarthy‘s selective amnesia convenient forgot that Pelosi originally offered to form a bipartisan Commission to investigate the Jan.6 Capitol riot/insurrection and offered the GOP equal subpeona power in such a Commission, but the GOP refused to participate. McConnell blocked the Senate from investigating the incident as well. The GOP deliberately forfeited the chance for equal participation and now disingenuously chooses to play victim card and just snipes from the side. They deserve no sympathy on this issue.
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@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
Pelosi originally offered to form a bipartisan Commission to investigate the Jan.6 Capitol riot/insurrection
With people from the DOP whom SHE picked. That is a precedent that was broken.
Read McCarthy again.
@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
Filibustered in the House? I didn't know that was a thing. They got their commission. Just not in the Senate.
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@George-K said in The hearings broadcast:
@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
Pelosi originally offered to form a bipartisan Commission to investigate the Jan.6 Capitol riot/insurrection
With people from the DOP whom SHE picked. That is a precedent that was broken.
Read McCarthy again.
@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
Filibustered in the House? I didn't know that was a thing. They got their commission. Just not in the Senate.
Had the GOP agreed to a bipartisan Commission back when Pelosi offered that option, the GOP would have been able to pick who they send to that Commission. The Dems offered equal participation both in the House and in the Senate. The GOP refused to participate in the House, the GOP blocked it in the Senate. That’s why the Dems are left with a “Select Committee” in the House instead of a bipartisan “Commission.”
The GOP could have had a bipartisan “Commission” with them picking half the members had they accepted Pelosi’s offer to put together a bipartisan “Commission.” But the GOP refused. Maybe most of the GOP was simply too afraid of Trump to vote for or participate in such a bipartisan “Commission.” Regardless, given the GOP’s own refusal to support the offer for equal participation in the past, the GOP deserves no sympathy on this issue today.
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@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
the GOP deserves no sympathy on this issue today.
No sympathy is needed.
The GOP will get millions of votes because of the democrats behavior.
But the democrats will lock up a few doofusses who took selfies illegally.
Because no justice, no peace
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@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
@George-K said in The hearings broadcast:
@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
Pelosi originally offered to form a bipartisan Commission to investigate the Jan.6 Capitol riot/insurrection
With people from the DOP whom SHE picked. That is a precedent that was broken.
Read McCarthy again.
@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
Filibustered in the House? I didn't know that was a thing. They got their commission. Just not in the Senate.
Had the GOP agreed to a bipartisan Commission back when Pelosi offered that option, the GOP would have been able to pick who they send to that Commission. The Dems offered equal participation both in the House and in the Senate. The GOP refused to participate in the House, the GOP blocked it in the Senate. That’s why the Dems are left with a “Select Committee” in the House instead of a bipartisan “Commission.”
The GOP could have had a bipartisan “Commission” with them picking half the members had they accepted Pelosi’s offer to put together a bipartisan “Commission.” But the GOP refused. Maybe most of the GOP was simply too afraid of Trump to vote for or participate in such a bipartisan “Commission.” Regardless, given the GOP’s own refusal to support the offer for equal participation in the past, the GOP deserves no sympathy on this issue today.
Your memory is faulty. The doc's is better...
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@Horace said in The hearings broadcast:
@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Mik said in The hearings broadcast:
Well, let's do a survey. Who here believes Trump would actually have hanged Pence if he could have?
Let's first do a survey for the question that no one (except you) answered. Who here thinks he said it?
Whether he meant it, if he said it, clearly I think he didn't. Unless he could use Trump Gallows(TM). He has a very long track record of saying things he didn't believe.
I think if he said it, which is plausible, he did not mean it. Which takes all the bite out of having said it.
Not to me. Even if he didn’t mean it, I find it interesting this is where we are… a president says his VP deserves to be hanged (loljk!) and there isn’t much of a reaction because of how numb we’ve become to such tomfoolery.
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I dunno why we’re still talking about the guy who called bullshit on the election on election night, wanted to use his VP to decertify the election or something, asked Georgia officials to find him some extra votes, wouldn’t lift a finger to stop people rioting in the capitol on his behalf, etc., etc.
I dunno why we’re still talking about this guy. You don’t need Jan. 6 for him to be irrelevant.
This buffoon is the best we can do?
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@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Horace said in The hearings broadcast:
@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Mik said in The hearings broadcast:
Well, let's do a survey. Who here believes Trump would actually have hanged Pence if he could have?
Let's first do a survey for the question that no one (except you) answered. Who here thinks he said it?
Whether he meant it, if he said it, clearly I think he didn't. Unless he could use Trump Gallows(TM). He has a very long track record of saying things he didn't believe.
I think if he said it, which is plausible, he did not mean it. Which takes all the bite out of having said it.
Not to me. Even if he didn’t mean it, I find it interesting this is where we are… a president says his VP deserves to be hanged (loljk!) and there isn’t much of a reaction because of how numb we’ve become to such tomfoolery.
It's strange to be focusing on reaction to what might or might not have been said, when there's plenty of facts about what actually happened on January 6 to react to. You are expecting people to react as if they heard him say it. That's not realistic. Actually if your main takeaway from the hearing is this hearsay, it's a huge win for those who think the left's characterization of Jan 6 is over the top. This is the most salacious thing we get, to move us from "doofi taking selfies" to "legitimate insurrection attempt"?
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@xenon said in The hearings broadcast:
I dunno why we’re still talking about the guy who called bullshit on the election on election night, wanted to use his VP to decertify the election or something, asked Georgia officials to find him some extra votes, wouldn’t lift a finger to stop people rioting in the capitol on his behalf, etc., etc.
I dunno why we’re still talking about this guy. You don’t need Jan. 6 for him to be irrelevant.
This buffoon is the best
wethe GOP can do?FIFY, NNTTM.
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@Axtremus said in The hearings broadcast:
@xenon said in The hearings broadcast:
I dunno why we’re still talking about the guy who called bullshit on the election on election night, wanted to use his VP to decertify the election or something, asked Georgia officials to find him some extra votes, wouldn’t lift a finger to stop people rioting in the capitol on his behalf, etc., etc.
I dunno why we’re still talking about this guy. You don’t need Jan. 6 for him to be irrelevant.
This buffoon is the best
wethe GOP can do?FIFY, NNTTM.
Those of us with a legitimate spirit of unity and social cohesion think in terms of the whole country, not in terms of political tribes, Ax.
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@Horace said in The hearings broadcast:
@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Horace said in The hearings broadcast:
@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Mik said in The hearings broadcast:
Well, let's do a survey. Who here believes Trump would actually have hanged Pence if he could have?
Let's first do a survey for the question that no one (except you) answered. Who here thinks he said it?
Whether he meant it, if he said it, clearly I think he didn't. Unless he could use Trump Gallows(TM). He has a very long track record of saying things he didn't believe.
I think if he said it, which is plausible, he did not mean it. Which takes all the bite out of having said it.
Not to me. Even if he didn’t mean it, I find it interesting this is where we are… a president says his VP deserves to be hanged (loljk!) and there isn’t much of a reaction because of how numb we’ve become to such tomfoolery.
It's strange to be focusing on reaction to what might or might not have been said, when there's plenty of facts about what actually happened on January 6 to react to. You are expecting people to react as if they heard him say it. That's not realistic. Actually if your main takeaway from the hearing is this hearsay, it's a huge win for those who think the left's characterization of Jan 6 is over the top. This is the most salacious thing we get, to move us from "doofi taking selfies" to "legitimate insurrection attempt"?
The first night of the hearings was in primetime and carried by the MSM. As such, I think the partisan committee would be using their best shot on Trump, knowing that the first production will be seen by the most people. If this is all they've got, they've got nothing. That's not surprising, since the FBI has already investigated and found no insurrection was planned or took place.
Which makes this all political, which was obvious from the time the committee members were appointed.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Horace said in The hearings broadcast:
@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Horace said in The hearings broadcast:
@89th said in The hearings broadcast:
@Mik said in The hearings broadcast:
Well, let's do a survey. Who here believes Trump would actually have hanged Pence if he could have?
Let's first do a survey for the question that no one (except you) answered. Who here thinks he said it?
Whether he meant it, if he said it, clearly I think he didn't. Unless he could use Trump Gallows(TM). He has a very long track record of saying things he didn't believe.
I think if he said it, which is plausible, he did not mean it. Which takes all the bite out of having said it.
Not to me. Even if he didn’t mean it, I find it interesting this is where we are… a president says his VP deserves to be hanged (loljk!) and there isn’t much of a reaction because of how numb we’ve become to such tomfoolery.
It's strange to be focusing on reaction to what might or might not have been said, when there's plenty of facts about what actually happened on January 6 to react to. You are expecting people to react as if they heard him say it. That's not realistic. Actually if your main takeaway from the hearing is this hearsay, it's a huge win for those who think the left's characterization of Jan 6 is over the top. This is the most salacious thing we get, to move us from "doofi taking selfies" to "legitimate insurrection attempt"?
I guess I have just observed that Trump did so many things in office that would've been "the scandal of the decade" for previous administrations that folks are numb to it. I actually didn't watch the hearings but when I saw the quote (and was curious if they had evidence before I believe it) I figured at least now some trump cheerleaders would've been like "Ok, if true, that's too far", but it sounds like its more of a "yeah that's trump... he does crazy shit like joking that his VP should be killed, lolz" reaction. Oh well.
