The Congressional hearings on the events of January 6th began today
I won’t be watching. I don’t usually watch hearings anyway; I prefer to read transcripts for anything of interest. This one seems even more than most (and that’s saying a lot) to come under the heading of “political theater.”
Apparently, one of the features was a lot of tears.
I believe the inestimable Julie Kelly is making a list of events worse than Jan 6 where little or no penalty was applied. The list is not short.
I cannot forgive them for they do know what they do…
Their purpose is not just to get their way but to get their way… permanently. And to do so, they will happily disenfranchise the self-determination of those who disagree with them. For such as they, the ‘opposition’ of disagreement is intolerable and illegitimate.
That, by any calculus is tyranny and tyranny is the profoundest of offenses against the laws of God and free men. There can be no compromise with the tyrannical because tyranny requires enslavement. No other condition will satiate their empty souls.
I watched some of it. I feel bad for the cops. They are being used. The attacks on the police never should have happened. My question: Who were the idiots who were in helmets, gas masks, body armor, and armed with baseball bats? MAGA? I doubt it. Who was urging the people to breach the Capitol? MAGA? I doubt it. The organized violence sounds much more like ANTIFA/BLM egged on by the FBI. Can’t prove it…….yet. But I do know from the Time article about how the left rigged the election, that, had Trump won, there were going to be riots in the usual cities. ANTIFA/BLM rioters are an arm of the Democrat party willing to do their bidding.
Today was political theatre with unnecessary histrionics. The obvious goal – to make the incursion into the equivalent of 9/11 or worse. Some framed it as the day democracy in the USA almost died. Gasp! Also to frame the MAGA supporters as barbaric white supremacists who hurled racial epithets at the police. Gasp! One black officer complained that he had never been called the N-word to his face, but he heard it from one of the attackers. Gasp!
I don’t support what was done by a few idiots that day, but it is being blown completely out of proportion by the Democrats. What needs more attention is why they didn’t have the necessary security that day. Had they had proper security, there would have been no incursion. It would have been a non-event.
Fortunately, the new mask mandates are somewhat obscuring the hearings.
I have no time to watch the nonsense, but glad it’s going as we will see what they have planned. Open the Gulag and after thousands are rounded up and having to be fed with no return. California’s high speed rail is my first guess.
Who were the idiots who were in helmets, gas masks, body armor, and armed with baseball bats?
I believe to date the only person in the building prosecuted for being armed had a collapsible baton, which he wasn’t using.
Julie Kelly has been pulling up old tweets uttered by one of the testifying officers, demonstrating he’s a partisan Democrat. She’s also noted that the lawyers representing them were pulled out of the same pool of Democratic operatives. One represented Alexander Vindman and another was a Holder-Lynch minion at the DoJ, waist deep in the non-investigation of Hellary’s bathroom server. Discover the Networks.
(Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Kevin Williamson is having a meltdown over Mrs. Kelly having referred to one of these characters as a ‘crisis actor’. National Review at one time retained Mr. Williamson with a compensation package worth in excess of $200,000 a year, in case you were wondering what was being done with your donor money).
This officer Dunn claimed some woman in a pink shirt and MAGA cap yelled ‘nigga’ at him. Supposedly there’s 14,000 hours of security video. Pix or it didn’t happen.
I watched some of it. I feel bad for the cops. They are being used.
It’s a reasonable inference the ones selected to ‘testify’ were the ones willing to be used.
By the way, this Dunn guy referred to Ofc. Sicknick as having ‘died in the line of duty’, when it’s a matter of public record he died of natural causes the following day, did not fall ill until it was over, and sent an amiable text to his family before falling ill.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/07/27/teary-capitol-police-officer-who-testified-about-january-6-previously-defended-violent-george-floyd-riots-in-kenosha/#.YQCKDSt0zhQ.twitter
Officer Dunn
JJ. @ 6:42: “ What needs more attention is why they didn’t have the necessary security that day.”
Word.
Art Deco, the description of the attackers with helmets, gas masks, body armor, and baseball bats was from one of the policemen at the hearing today. Aha! On 1/6 I saw some people on video who fit that description during the incursion. I won’t go back to the comment I made that day, but it was to the effect that I saw several people kitted up like ANTIFA. It made no sense to me that MAGA supporters would do that.
The cops may be Democrats or Democrat sympathizers, but they don’t understand how bad they are making their profession look by participating in this. That’s why I feel bad for them. They have become tools and will be rightly scorned by most other cops.
Why are the Democrats pushing this in such a ham-handed manner? They’ve gotten, I think, every Republican in Congress except for two quislings to either ignore or repudiate the 1/6 hearing and the testimony today seems only guaranteed to harden the resolve of the Right.
The best I can figure is that we’re seeing the metastasization of the “Emerging Democratic Majority” fantasy. These people have spent almost 20 years assuming their ascendancy to power was unstoppable and now they think they’ve finally arrived, so there’s no need to even pretend at being fair, honest, or evenhanded.
Mike
I can’t help but wonder if these people have any idea what a real armed attack would look like. “The day democracy almost died in America” somebody said that the Left always projects. Does the Left want an end to democracy? I’m afraid we’ll find out during the current administration or the next.
On 1/6 I saw some people on video who fit that description during the incursion. I won’t go back to the comment I made that day, but it was to the effect that I saw several people kitted up like ANTIFA. It made no sense to me that MAGA supporters would do that.
If Julie Kelly is correct, almost no one has been prosecuted for weapons offenses inside the building. If that’s the case, it strongly suggests those persons were agents provacateurs.
For those of us trying to follow this little drama (about 330 million of us, not having been present at a fracas involving at most a few hundred people) could we be given a program? A diagram of the Capitol and a timeline to show which people entered where, when, and did what? With all the security cam footage (to say nothing of the confiscated video from participants’ phones) it should be pretty simple to show us the unfolding drama complete with lead actors. Seriously: somebody with community-college-level skills at graphics/video production should be able to cook this up. It’s only been 6 months (money no object) so why do the Dems not drop that on the waiting world?
Asking for a friend.
“Does the Left want an end to democracy? ”
I suppose everyone here has noticed the more or less uniform use of the phrase “our democracy” by Democrats in this and pretty much every context lately. “Biggest threat to our democracy” (whatever that is at the moment) and so forth. It is too consistent not to be deliberate, though it could be a case of the hive mind at work rather than any explicit directive. If you haven’t noticed it, start. It’s kind of creepy. My take is that the “our” in the phrase refers to their party, not to the nation at large. “Our democracy” = that form of government in which our party rules.
So in that sense they do not want an end to democracy. :-/
“If Julie Kelly is correct, almost no one has been prosecuted for weapons offenses inside the building. If that’s the case, it strongly suggests those persons were agents provacateurs.” Art Deco
That’s my belief. It’s also the belief of Michael Yon, who was there.
For which, see this:
https://minuteman-militia.com/2021/01/13/michael-yon-antifa-clearly-led-attack-at-the-capitol/
“The cops may be Democrats or Democrat sympathizers, but they don’t understand how bad they are making their profession look by participating in this.” J.J.
No offense intended J.J. but I think you’re being a bit naive there. All they care about is being on the side of the bread that gets the butter. They’re knowingly telling untruths, which is Webster’s definition of lying.
“Does the Left want an end to democracy?” JFM
Yes.
“There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” Mass. Senator Daniel Webster
The few provocateur seen to be actually the ones breaking the windows as far as I know have not been apprehended, another reason video is being kept a guarded secret.
“…biggest threat to OUR democracy…”
Step right up folks, it’s the Democratic Party Projection Circus.
Again.
And again.
And again.
But it’s surely instructive: Whatever they accuse their opponents they are doubly, triply guilty of themselves.
(Not to mention that the correct word here would be “Republic”, but I quibble…)
In any event, if we break down this pregnant statement, one might conclude that “OUR [Democratic Party] democracy” is not “YOUR democracy”.
In fact, “OUR [Democratic Party] democracy” is not “democracy” at all, but “Biden”ism (a brand of snide, snarky authoritarianism featuring elites, earnest snake-oil salespersons, all lies all the time, a slavish media, a flatulent DOJ, and the proudly unleashed “24/7 Hate”).
Which at this point should be readily apparent to all who bother looking.
The louder the shouting, the harder they crying, the more pathetic they should be appearing to those watching this bastard, if carefully orchestrated, production.
Not that simply awful theater has to be ineffective. To the contrary, it can fool and scam and grift; but it should be clear what they’re trying to do…and what they’ve been trying to do since Trump was elected and throughout Trump’s presidency, with the theatrical false accusations and non-stop witch hunts…
——
BTW, precisely what J.J. said (at 6:42)…
Pssst. Don’t tell anyone, not a soul, cross your heart and hope to…but:
https://www.lawofficer.com/doj-quietly-acknowledges-there-was-no-sedition-at-the-us-capitol/
H/T Instapundit.
NOT A SOUL!
JFM on July 27, 2021 at 8:27 pm said:
I can’t help but wonder if these people have any idea what a real armed attack would look like.
You could tell them to look at videos of the attacks on the Federal Courthouse in Portland OR to get an idea.
MBunge on July 27, 2021 at 8:25 pm said:
…
The best I can figure is that we’re seeing the metastasization of the “Emerging Democratic Majority” fantasy. These people have spent almost 20 years assuming their ascendancy to power was unstoppable and now they think they’ve finally arrived, so there’s no need to even pretend at being fair, honest, or evenhanded.
I have thoughts in a similar vein but mine run to the position that the expected Majority never quite Emerges for Democrats. They can spin majority of votes counted anyway they want to but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. After their success defeating Orange Man Bad in 2020 they have a majority of seven votes in the House and a 50-50 Senate. Though they have recovered from just six states after 2016 to fifteen states now under Democrat control, those states represent just one-third of our population despite including New York, Illinois, and California. I think what we’re seeing is far from triumph but something closer to a desperate attempt to engineer a way to drag themselves over the finish line.
The Bitter Tears of Adam Kinzinger.
Ed Buck’s buddy Adam Schiff wept – though not as copiously as Adam Kinzinger.
Further to the officer who claims protesters shouted racial epithets at him after he told them he voted for Biden: Why was he discussing his vote with them? Seems like a very odd thing to do for any police officer under those or any other circumstances.
Kate,
Incitement to violence was the motivation.
Geoffrey Britain, yes, I’ve now read his detailed “testimony.” He says, as he was preventing people from going down a stairwell, that they shouted, “No one voted for Biden!” and he replied, “I voted for Biden!” Whereupon, he says they began shouting “n****” at him. I’m with Art Deco, above. Pix or it didn’t happen. This is very reminiscent of the scene when Democrats waded through the crowd before their vote for Obamacare, and they claimed opponents shouted racist things at them. With cell phones everywhere, and a $100k reward offered, nobody ever produced video to corroborate the claim.
This guy is now revealed to have an extensive pro-BLM-riot and anti-white social media record. Among his other statements, he said online, “Why is murder an appropriate response to property damage but property damage is not an appropriate response to murder?” [Murder is not an appropriate response to property damage, Officer.] Not a credible witness, and probably not someone who should be employed by the Capitol Police, since he cannot separate his personal opinions from his job.
Link for above from Officer Dunn: https://redstate.com/streiff/2021/07/27/january-6-commission-star-witness-has-a-history-of-hating-president-trump-and-support-riots-that-arent-where-hes-working-n417384
As a cop and a black man, Dunn should know the actual FBI statistics on blacks being shot by white cops. Even a cursory review would reveal that characterizing those almost always justifiable killings as “murders” is a decidedly false characterization. If Dunn doesn’t know, he’s incompetent but if he does know, he’s a liar. And a bearer of false witness.
I do think it possible that if Dunn did reply, “I voted for Biden!” that there were rude reactions to that statement. Anything is possible but I’m very doubtful that more than one or two used the ‘n’ word. More likely would be accusing him of being a liberal uncle tom. He’s almost certainly exaggerating if not lying.
Geoffrey Britain; Kate:
What they called him is also irrelevant to the questions that should be asked, which are (among others): (1) what were the people who entered the Capitol planning to do? and (2) why was security inadequate although it was known beforehand this was a risky situation?
Whether those people were racists using the n-word doesn’t answer either question. Am I correct that they didn’t attack him physically? It was a verbal shouting match? I seem to recall that some of the Antifa and/or BLM rioters in Portland and elsewhere called black police officers vile racist names. Again, what matters in the legal sense is what they did, such as assault. There are racists in each crowd, left and right.
If it’s even true. We know there are also people who lie about being called racist epithets. I’m not saying he is lying, I’m just saying it happens that people lie about it and such lies are not at all unusual.