January 6th Hearings

[rSin]

coup plotting politicians are still in office and theyre numbers are growing
here is one example, a guy who holds his press conferences at the company headquarters of the company that bankrolls him


The heavy support shocked both longtime customers and veteran political observers, neither of whom had realized the potato-roll empire had propped up Mastriano, who had been little known outside of his district before the pandemic. Over the past two years, Mastriano has won a die-hard base by casting his opposition to lockdown mandates as a holy battle, a framing he also used to claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. After the election, Mastriano organized buses for, and attended, the rally that precipitated the attack on the Capitol. As governor, he has said he “could decertify every machine in the state with a stroke of a pen” because he would appoint the secretary of state overseeing the electoral system, raising the possibility he could enact a one-man coup in 2024. (A spokesperson for Mastriano did not respond to requests for comment.)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06 ... riano.html

[smokebreaks]

It's all bread and circuses for the masses.

These fascist bastards have had the control of the presidency since the Dulles brothers decided there should be no more Roosevelt's.

That people think anything is going to change whether they charge Trump for sedition or not? baffles my mind.

[Butcher Bob]

Nice try Dick...keep wallowing in your TDS...ignoring the fact that your country became fascist long before Trump. He is merely a symptom of the broken system, not the cause. Otherwise your moniker would be a "convicted" war criminal.

[Dick Cheney]

Besides maybe they will quit saying the fascist part out loud and y'all can peacefully go back to your over consumerism.

Well if he's convicted of the crime, he cannot run in 2024. The change is y'all can now vote for Liz Cheney for President!


Ok boomer.
34. That people think anything is going to change whether they charge Trump for sedition or not? baffles my mind.

[ripper5]

I don't know, I like to see seditionists charged for their crimes. Regardless of any change that might or might not be in the air at any given moment...and apparently I have a different perspective on all of this so called fascism...I share this pastor's alarmism.

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/06/05/im ... d-in-2022/

I’m a Christian Pastor. Evangelicals Have to Be Defeated in 2022.

If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.

This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish. I watched it all unfold from the inside

Maybe this is a bit hyperbole, but it's definitely not entirely so.

Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.

He nails it for me. Im going by what I know of rightwing immediate family & fb friends. Everything is relative. If we can narrowly blame it all on the 2015 Democrat shenanigans, then we can blame it on any other big event likewise. I'll take 911 & the aftermath invasion for my blame moment.

Everything changes. Look at the legalization effort for the past decade ffs!

[Dick Cheney]

More old revelations. Gettin a little ahead of the committee's Presentation.

Mike Pence " I'm not getting in that car"

Pence was not alone in questioning, others members in safe rooms texted warnings, paraphrasing "If we leave this building we're never coming back. I know how coups work"

After the mob breached the building on Jan. 6, the Secret Service hustled Mike Pence out. They wanted to take him away from the Capitol, but he refused to go. Why didn’t he want to go?

Because it meant stopping the electoral-vote certification, sow doubt, shut down the legislative branch, remove them physically. Trump did plan to call the National Guard but when it was to save Congress from a now entrenched mob. Not to remove the patriots. A short step to declaring national emergency, prehaps martial law. Don't forget there were still two unexploded pipe bombs by the parties' headquarters that day.

25th Amendment. Call guard now. Not later.
After the mob left many Weary Congressional voices were ready to call it a day when Mitch McConnell demanded that no one goes home until the certification is complete. Mitch damn well knows how silent coups work.

Details On Why Pence Refused To Get In Secret Service Car On Jan. 6
April 25, 2022

[rSin]

The voter suppression bills passed by GOP-controlled state legislatures all over the U.S. are being slammed by Democrats for making voting more difficult by reducing or eliminating early voting or discouraging the use of mail-in ballots. But as bad as those things are, something much more sinister and nakedly authoritarian is coming from MAGA Republicans in 2022: an effort to take control of the administration of elections, making it easier for them to simply throw out election results if they don’t like the outcome. And if the results of the 2022 midterms put enough “Stop the Steal” Republicans in control of elections, they may have a chance to do exactly that in 2024.


Report details how Big Lie-promoting MAGA Republicans are moving closer to seizing control of elections

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/big-li ... ns-report/

[Munchy]

[rSin]

^^^ good videos
not a cenk fan at all but he does good there


Justice Is Blind. And So Is Merrick Garland
The DOJ's long fall from grace.



Punch for punch, the debasement of Attorney General Merrick Garland is without historical correlate. The self-defeating adherence to ideological centrism (often indistinguishable from passivity in the face of elite resistance), paired with his masochistic devotion to the status quo, represents the kind of Blue Dog/New Dem totem that could have only emerged from a lab. Corporatist Democrats believed during the Obama years, as they do now, that through the ritual sacrifice of their Democratic ideals, they could resurrect the corpse of a forgotten age when left and right joined hands to strangle the everyday citizen. That union never happened after the GOP realized they could simply steamroll Democrats like Garland who refuse to open their eyes to the Conservative onslaught, even when it was punching them in the face.

If Garland's stain on DOJ wasn't bad enough, Biden's failure to man the DOJ's barracks with U.S. attorneys has further deflated the already anemic law enforcement agency.
The consolation prize Garland received after a thorough curb stomping by Mitch McConnell on the steps of the Supreme Court is his chair in the DOJ's highest office. Perched above the statue of lady justice, Garland seems to have taken inspiration from her shrouded visage and affixed his own blindfold to blot out the clown car of cartoon villains unloading into congressional hearings to stand trial for their respective roles in the attempted insurrection.

Tens of millions of Americans will tune in to the ongoing January 6 hearings in an attempt to reconcile the desecration of their Capitol with America's wilted top cop Garland cowering in the corner. In the shadow of the hulking figure Bill Barr once cut, a shaken tit mouse has taken up residence, beset on all sides by crumbling institutions and sinister schemes: Donald Trump plotting a comeback, unchecked Wall Street profiteers, and a host of corporate criminal enterprises seizing on a cowed Attorney General.

Similarly pathetic is the talk of secret progress being made to hold accountable the orchestrators of the attempted coup; a story identical to the prosecutions of Wall Street fraudsters under Obama. With the statute of limitations already passing on multiple Trump crimes and some Trump lackeys being allowed to evade Congressional subpoenas, better to call out the likelihood of failure when pressure can still alter its course than to wait for certainty of failure. This is especially the case since both the height of the midterm elections and Trump's likely entrance into the presidential race immediately thereafter will only exacerbate the downsides of Garland's plodding course thus far.

If Garland's stain on DOJ wasn't bad enough, Biden's failure to man the DOJ's barracks with U.S. attorneys has further deflated the already anemic law enforcement agency. As RDP's Toni Rosenthal wrote this week, "This month President Biden nominated five additional people to helm the 93 districts of the Office of the United States Attorney. These five nominees brought Biden's total nominations for the office up to just 53 out of 92 nominees for the office, or a little more than half. Now, nearly a year and a half into Biden's presidency, the fact that almost half of these positions are still left without a nominee is a glaring indictment of Biden's failure to prioritize these critically important positions."

For the few and far between enforces who have spine enough to pursue the giant corporations robbing Americans blind, Garland has effectively neutered them, at least for the time being. As Andrea Beaty, my colleague here at the Revolving Door Project (RDP), wrote this week:

The Department of Justice's recent decision to bar Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Jonathan Kanter, from working on investigations into tech giant Google while the Department weighs whether to force his recusal outright reflects an undeniable double standard in light of the widespread conflicts of interest at the DOJ. Kanter's mistreatment further demonstrates the Justice Department's overwhelming commitment to protecting the interests of big business.

Kanter's critics within the DOJ charge that his previous work in the private sector presents a conflict of interest when it comes to cases involving Google. In doing so, they and their allies in Silicon Valley not only mischaracterize the nature of Mr. Kanter's work, but are also establishing an 'ethical' precedent that many current DOJ officials do not come close to meeting.

Governance

The DOJ is not the only oversight agency wielding vast powers to crack down on bad actors that continues to flail under the Biden administration. The Food and Drug Administration has deflated under a decades-long decline, culminating in the fatal, tragic, and politically disastrous baby formula shortage that has wreaked havoc across the country.

As RDP's Toni Aguilar Rosenthal and Mekedas Belayneh wrote this week, "Government negligence has resulted in a hollowed-out FDA failing to prevent the deadly food outbreaks that kill 3,000 people a year. To put this number in perspective, the FDA's failure to protect the food we eat kills the same number of people as died in 9/11, every single year. The public deserves better. People across the country should be able to go to the grocery store and buy food that they know is safe, not that they simply hope to be. FSMA provided a blueprint for greater food safety enforcement and oversight at the FDA, but the underfunded, disorganized, apathetic agency never fulfilled the goals of the legislation. Will it take another crisis for the government to take its approach to food safety seriously?"

Tech

Meanwhile, the very titans of digital industry that an invigorated DOJ should be cracking down on are buoyed and supported by none other than Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo as she seeks to position herself for a new job as Treasury Secretary. Instead of advocating for American workers and the companies that pay living wages to produce American products, Raimondo has used her position to advocate for the very tech companies that have weaponized social media platforms into political instruments and destabilized entire countries. Writing in The American Prospect on Tuesday, RDP's Mekedas Belayneh noted:

"The Department of Commerce is currently conducting digital trade talks with nations from the Indo-Pacific and Europe, with negotiations led by its secretary, Gina Raimondo. Through her role as lead negotiator in President Biden's newly established Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and one-year-old U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), Raimondo is poised to influence global trade policies.

[...]

Last December, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) attacked Secretary Raimondo for "lobbying on behalf of Big Tech companies overseas," and it's easy to see why. Deemed "tech's favorite Biden official," by Axios for defending American tech companies from European regulators, Raimondo's sympathy with Big Tech's agenda has become even more obvious in these high-stakes negotiations."

With so much stake and time running out, the administration's failures at the DOJ, the FDA, and the Commerce Department can no longer be tolerated. It's time for Merrick Garland to see the light, before November's darkness swallows us whole.


https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022 ... ck-garland

[Dick Cheney]

'He knew it was illegal, he knew it was wrong:' Jan. 6 panel highlights pressure on Pence to overturn election

Former aides to Donald Trump and Mike Pence made it clear they did not agree with attorney John Eastman’s assertion that former Vice President Mike Pence had the power to unilaterally declare Trump had won the 2020 presidential election.
The panel played a video montage of earlier testimony from Trump and Pence advisers who either said they believed there was no basis to Eastman’s theory or said others in the administration vehemently disagreed with the lawyer.

Herschmann said Eastman tried to explain to him what he believed was ambiguity in the laws. 
Herschmann said he told Eastman: “You're saying that you believe the vice president, acting as president of the Senate, can be the sole decision maker as to, under your theory, who becomes the next president United States?”
“And he said yes,” Herschmann continued. “I said, ‘Are you out of your effing mind?’
“I said, ‘You're completely crazy.’ I said, ‘You're going to turn around and tell 78-plus million people in this country that your theory is this is how you're going to invalidate their votes because you think the election was stolen.’ I said, ‘They're not going to tolerate that. You're going to cause riots in the streets.’
“And he said words to the effect of, there's been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy or to protect the republic,” Herschmann added.
Marc Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff, said it was communicated to him that White House counsel Pat Cipollone believed Eastman’s interpretation was “nutty.”
Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign, said fellow campaign officials Justin Clark and Matt Morgan thought Eastman’s “theory was crazy, that there was no validity to in any way, shape or form.”

Trump and Eastman went and tried it anyway. Pressuring and ordering Pence to negate a fair election.

Trump released false statement saying Mike Pence was on board in overturning the election.
A lie, The VP rejected it 100%. On many occasions and face-to-face with Trump.

Eastman immediately after January 6th failed coup, asked for a Presidential pardon. He did bad.

Panel says riot escalated after Trump’s Pence tweet.

Highlights From Jan. 6 Committee Hearing On Pressure Campaign Against Pence