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Just for Laughs
Also Just for Laughs
The Monday Thought
So you may have heard that the January 6th Committee had a public hearing on Thursday. It would be hard to miss the coverage.
Did I watch the hearings? Not really, no. Will I watch them in the future? Probably not, because the idea of a made-for-television event that I will undoubtedly read and hear about the next day anyway is not necessarily what I need.
But you should underestimate the importance of these hearings at your peril.
The Audience Factor
Do I know who is watching the hearings? I have a hunch. The people who hate Donald Trump the most are the ones watching. The ones who probably most need to see the unvarnished truth about January 6th are the ones who aren’t watching, assuming that losers like Trump and Mike Lindell are being honest with them.
I saw this clip. And you know what, I felt the same unmitigated rage I had the day that it happened.
If people who are in the middle watch that, it is hard to think that it will do good things for Trump enablers at the ballot box. And yet I know that many people, including a ton of people who hate-read what I write, that need to see it will refuse and think that the videos showing this violence are some fake news.
They probably also think that Ivanka Trump is now deep state or some such.
Some have argued that what the January 6th Committee did on Thursday was start to make the case for prosecuting Trump:
“I think the committee, especially Liz Cheney, outlined a powerful criminal case against the former president,” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama.
“A crime requires two things — a bad act and criminal intent,” Mr. Katyal said. By citing testimony by Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, a lawyer for his campaign and others who told him that he had lost and then documenting his failure to act once supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Katyal said, the panel addressed both of those requirements.
Now, it is undeniable that Trump stirring up his supporters, sending them off to the Capitol, refusing to send in the National Guard, and suggesting that maybe Mike Pence should be hanged, is a bad act. The question is, is there criminal intent? Is Donald Trump being a delusional, doddering fool enough of a cause to indict him federally? I’m not sure. And I’m not a lawyer.
The Precedent
Those of you who may be thinking that these kindof hearings about criminal action may remember the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, better known as the Watergate Committee. That committee had a number of public hearings. In fact, according to records, 319 hours of the Watergate Hearings were broadcast publicly and 85% of the country watched at least part of the hearings. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the public pressure building up from those televised hearings that made Richard Nixon’s position in the White House untenable.
Obviously, the situation is a little different. Nixon was President facing impeachment. Trump is a disgraced ex-President. It’s hard to imagine that political pressure to act, at least against Trump, is going to be too high.
But the impact of these hearings may not be negligible. If enough evidence sticks against members of Congress who have been accused of seeking pardons from Trump before the end of his term for their activities related to January 6th, it might be those members of Congress who are the ones who pay the political price for Trump’s coup.
The New Professional Right is Nothing More than Grievance Mongers
The pro-Trump media, who have never missed an opportunity to suck up to Trump and his minions, have of course lost their minds over the Committee in general. Their main point of contention is the fact that so few Republicans are on the Committee and that the two that are, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are Trump critics. Never mind the fact that Kevin McCarthy refused to participate in the Committee and withdrew all of his appointees to the Committee.
You can argue about the partisan nature of the Committee, and there is merit to that. But it was Republican House leadership that decided to take their ball and go home.
Meanwhile, Trump media is also whining about all of the different ways they want to investigate the Biden Administration.
That’s funny, I didn’t know that the point of winning elections was to just investigate your political enemies.
The point of Congress isn't supposed to be the political theater of investigating your enemies. And yet, the dopes at the National-level within GOP have decided it is because governing is too hard and you have to keep the rubes happy.
These of course are the same people angry that the January 6th Committee exists.
The RNC and the Congressional House caucus, in general, need to be purged and replaced with actual conservatives serious about doing conservative things instead of being just attention whores engaging in grievance Politics.
It’s real easy to Tweet into the void and be angry about irrelevant things. But when Congressional Republicans are ready to talk about protecting life, inflation, national security, a balanced budget, and restoring regular order, let me know.
How Does This End?
Right now, it’s hard to say what the upshot of the January 6th Committee will be. They are scheduled to issue a final report in September, right before the mid-term elections. That hardly will quiet Committee detractors that want to say this entire exercise is political.
What will the Committee recommend? Will anybody, other than those who have been previously referred for prosecution and those idiots refusing to testify, wind up in Court? And will the Report in any way impact an electoral map that is currently predisposed to be a good one for Republicans?
Time will tell. But considering what we have seen in the past from televised hearings, anybody who totally dismisses the potential for the hearings and the Committee to have a huge impact on the political scene is deluding themselves.