Now That The Dust Has Settled (regarding January 6th)

[gimmethesimplelife]

Just like I posted above - now that time has passed, what do you make of January 6th? Honestly, I am still so amazed that this happened I don't know what to make of it. Rob

[iris lilies]

It was several degrees of awful.

[bae]

I don’t think the dust has settled yet.

[happystuff]

I hope the dust has not settled yet, as I think it was a VERY big thing.

[Alan]

It's interesting to think how this would be seen if there actually had been major electoral shenanigans in play during the election. The line between treasonous scum and saviors of the republic is mighty thin.

[Teacher Terry]

I support prosecuting everyone involved.

[flowerseverywhere]

I know otherwise reasonable people who believe the election was stolen. One woman told me Obama is the ringleader and all the judges and republicans who said it was legitimate were paid of by get this… the Jews, BLM and Soros. Of course Hillary is in on it and it will all come out and the Jan 6 “patriots” will be revered by all as savers of our democracy. I still see Trump flags and these people are convinced the election will be overturned and Trump reinstated.

I doubt I will ever forget that day. We were mesmerized in horror. It was lucky Pence or Pelosi weren’t killed. Unfortunately many law enforcers were hurt and a few killed. But no worries. Trump was recently praising Ashley Babbit who was killed by law enforcement so there is that

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ashli-babbitt-shooting-capitol-1637477%3famp=1

[iris lilies]

It's interesting to think how this would be seen if there actually had been major electoral shenanigans in play during the election. The line between treasonous scum and saviors of the republic is mighty thin.
But c’mon, these people are not ones I trust to save anything important.

They were there to raise hell and rouse rabble, just like shit disturbers in my town. I don’t see that this January 6 group was any more ideologically motivated than most of the rioters who gather to tear down buildings in St. Louis, loot, and shoot the occasional cop.

[Alan]

But c’mon, these people I’m not ones I trust to save anything important.


They were there to raise hell and rouse rabble, just like this shit disturbers in my town. I don’t see that this January 6 group was any more ideologically motivated than most of the riders who gather to tear down buildings in St. Louis, loot, and shoot the occasional cop.
I suspect you're mostly right....but still...

[frugal-one]

But c’mon, these people are not ones I trust to save anything important.

They were there to raise hell and rouse rabble, just like shit disturbers in my town. I don’t see that this January 6 group was any more ideologically motivated than most of the rioters who gather to tear down buildings in St. Louis, loot, and shoot the occasional cop.

Seriously? They wanted to hang the VP!

[Yppej]

I don't pay much attention to it. Politics is cyclical though and I can see the Trumpsters coming back. Biden is slipping in popularity because covid restrictions continue and his attempts to deal with it by forcing private businesses to be his vaccine police are not popular.

If the government switched to treating covid as endemic rather than a pandemic that would do him a lot of good. Stop the mask requirements at Federal buildings, stop the vaccine mandates, reverse the CDC recommendations local public health officials latch onto in order to justify restrictions. Stop the endless testing and quarantining of asymptomatic people.

Florida with no restrictions is only at substantial level of community transmission right now whereas Massachusetts with many restrictions by local governments is at high rate of transmission. Go figure!

[beckyliz]

I can't believe we're (as a nation) not more horrified at it than we are. As far as I'm concerned, they committed treason and should be prosecuted as such.

[gimmethesimplelife]

I can't believe we're (as a nation) not more horrified at it than we are. As far as I'm concerned, they committed treason and should be prosecuted as such.I agree 100 percent. Rob

[frugal-one]

It is very shocking.

[jp1]

I can't believe we're (as a nation) not more horrified at it than we are. As far as I'm concerned, they committed treason and should be prosecuted as such.

We’re still in the first innings of this ballgame. People like Steve bannon still haven’t testified before the house commission. At least some of them will undoubtedly have interesting things to say about what happened and what plans were in place.

And on the civilian track, Marcy wheeler at emptywheel.net has been doing a great job of tracking the individual traitors. That ballgame is still in the early/mid stages as the various justice agencies do their thing and put it all together.

Will the traitor in chief be held to account? That’s unclear at this point but just like the Lord of the Rings movies* a lot of patience is needed before we get to the good part and see how it all plays out.

*I still can’t believe the first of those movies won the editing award. I heard that and was like ‘wtf?’ As long as that movie was and the fact that nothing happened are clear indicators that no editing occurred…

[iris lilies]

We’re still in the first innings of this ballgame. People like Steve bannon still haven’t testified before the house commission. At least some of them will undoubtedly have interesting things to say about what happened and what plans were in place.

And on the civilian track, Marcy wheeler at emptywheel.net has been doing a great job of tracking the individual traitors. That ballgame is still in the early/mid stages as the various justice agencies do their thing and put it all together.

Will the traitor in chief be held to account? That’s unclear at this point but just like the Lord of the Rings movies* a lot of patience is needed before we get to the good part and see how it all plays out.

*I still can’t believe the first of those movies won the editing award. I heard that and was like ‘wtf?’ As long as that movie was and the fact that nothing happened are clear indicators that no editing occurred…

Of course editing occurred. Editing means many many aspects of a film besides making it short. You just mean that you want it shorter. Just like I think J. K. Rowling needed an editor to firmly slash some of the harry potter text.

[jp1]

Of course editing occurred. Editing means many many aspects of a film besides making it short. You just mean that you want it shorter. Just like I think J. K. Rowling needed an editor to firmly slash some of the harry potter text.

Truthfully I’m glad that I hated that movie. I met SO on the night that my friends were going to see the second one. If I’d been going to it instead of Inviting him
to my home who knows what my life would be today.

[jp1]

Apparently the dust is still getting stirred up. Today we learned that the traitor in the White House’s family was communicating with the traitors on the ground at the capitol via burner phones bought by the on the ground traitors. Presumably the first traitor family was in in this on they wouldn’t have answered the calls. Is it time to start chanting ‘lock them up. Lock them up’ yet?

[GL from QC]

My degree is in political science. It's a strange field: it doesn't prepare you for any specific job (unlike, say, nursing or engineering fields) but it teaches you to spot opportunities, weak points, and predict the future. Over my weird and long career, some of the highest-ranked coworkers I encountered in my company were fellow poli-sci majors, somehow succeeding in fields that were not designed with poli-sci folks in mind. :)

All of this is to say that I had seen a lot of this coming as early as February 2016... Once I saw that Trump had a good chance of getting the Republican nomination, I knew that something was fundamentally off, and that such an irrational electorate (come on, he is no Eisenhower or even Bush Sr) would lead to something bizarre and disturbing down the line. After I saw how the aftermath of the Hurricane Maria was mishandled (remember, the one that destroyed Puerto Rico?), I knew that the government would fail if a large disaster would hit the mainland United States. I never figured it would be the worst pandemic since 1918, but I was right in the broad terms. I'm glad I managed to secure that work transfer and move to Canada in early 2019...

As for the actual events - just random thoughts in no particular order:
1. When the sitting president riles up his supporters to overthrow the legislative branch - sorry, but that's an attempted coup, so your democracy counter resets. The American democracy is less than 11 months old now. :P I hope that more mature and established nations, such as Mongolia or Micronesia, will provide their sage guidance to this struggling new democracy. ;)

2. The fact that citizen groups had to pool their resources to identify the idiots that stormed the Congress... That's a really big blow to the whole "omnipotent and omnipresent surveillance state" concept that's been promoted all these years. If random internet addicts and housewives and retirees can do a better job identifying those domestic terrorists than the FBI/NSA/whomever, then maybe it's time to cut their funding by, say, 90%? Yeah, 90% would be a good start. :)

3. Just days before the attempted coup, military bigwigs (Joint Chiefs of Staff, IIRC) issued a strange public statement reminding the military that they do not take sides in politics. There was also a very long delay with sending the National Guard to DC: one of the evacuated congress-critters had to start making calls on their phone before that process even got started. Whatever happened, it stinks. A lot. That wasn't just a bunch of yahoos going on a little tour. (This isn't a conspiracy theory - all of this is a matter of public record, just like the videos of certain members of the Capitol Hill police aiding the domestic terrorists.)

4. Several hundred domestic terrorists got caught and will go on trial. (Even though their sentences are alarmingly short - as short as 30 days in some cases.) But there are also very many that did not get identified... In certain circles, those folks (or those who served their month-long sentence and returned) will be viewed as local heroes, and examples to follow... If you tried to write a fiction book describing the events of 1/06 just 10 years ago, you would've been laughed out of every publishing house. Now that the unthinkable actually happened, it'll be a lot easier to pull it off again. (Just as an example, suicide bombing used to be incredibly rare until about the 1980s. Now it's everywhere.)

5. Lack of consequences is an invitation to keep trying. If people get away with this, and if the organizers and people behind the scenes suffer zero consequences (I mean, Henry Kissinger still walks the earth, and that guy committed some legitimate war crimes...), then there's a very high likelihood of something similar happening in the future. Maybe not the same exact scenario, but storming a state capitol? Absolutely. Rushing a federal courthouse? Not impossible.

As always, I hope that I am very wrong, but I have this disturbing tendency of being right, at least in general terms. The curse of being a poli-sci major, eh? So, long story long - I'll just stay here in Canada, where we'll continue chugging the maple syrup and looking at our deranged downstairs neighbour with morbid fascination hahaha

[iris lilies]

Seriously? They wanted to hang the VP!

Yes, seriously, I am making comparisons of violent idiots in crowds. In our last riot here they shot a cop dead and burned a building named in my will.

[LDAHL]

Yes, seriously, I am making comparisons of violent idiots in crowds. In our last riot here they shot a cop dead and burned a building named in my will.

But other than that it was mostly peaceful.

[LDAHL]

So, long story long - I'll just stay here in Canada, where we'll continue chugging the maple syrup and looking at our deranged downstairs neighbour with morbid fascination hahaha

I see the government sanctioned cartel that “manages” maple syrup has had to dip into it’s strategic reserve, so there may be less to chug.

[jp1]

Seriously? They wanted to hang the VP!

Haven't you learned the rules yet? To republicans violence only counts if democrats engage in it. Just in the past week or so we've seen one republican congressman tweet out a violent video fantasy featuring the murders or another congressperson and the president, and a different congressperson stating that all Muslims, including Muslim congresspeople, are terrorists without rebuke from any other republican politicians. In other words, it was just a regular week here in the US.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Haven't you learned the rules yet? To republicans violence only counts if democrats engage in it. Just in the past week or so we've seen one republican congressman tweet out a violent video fantasy featuring the murders or another congressperson and the president, and a different congressperson stating that all Muslims, including Muslim congresspeople, are terrorists without rebuke from any other republican politicians. In other words, it was just a regular week here in the US.I'll never quite understand Arizona. It runs very Conservative and then out of nowhere can be Liberal, and then it can be very bizarre at the drop of a hat. Not only is Arizona that state of Paul Gozar and his violent fantasies against AOC leading to his censure BUT that's not all folks.

It's also the state of two impeached Governors: Evan Mecham and Fife Symington. Matter of fact, Evan Mecham's profound disrespect for the people of Arizona led to my budding activism and protesting so I thank the crook for that - was he so stupid that he believed embezzling state money and diverting said money to his Glendale, AZ Pontiac dealership wouldn't be caught?

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Arizona is no stranger to bizarre politicians and their inevitably bizarre acts in office. Now we've got Gozar as an embarassment and Kirsten Sinema flexing her power and creating headlines.

Never a dull moment in Arizona! Rob

[jp1]

I had no idea Arizona had governors as ‘colorful’ as most of illinois’ governors in my lifetime. Thanks for the history lesson!