Key points the 1/6 Committee hearing brought out yesterday

Various sources are summarizing the hearings from yesterday. Much of this has been made public before, but the 1/6 committee did a splendid job of honestly telling the tale of what the ex-president did and what his intent was during a critical three hour period on 1/6.  

A summary of some of the key points could be helpful for context and memory.

• After all of T****’s lawsuits alleging a fraudulent election failed in the courts, he planned an a coup for 1/6 as another attempt to stay in power by simply usurping the election outcome. 
• Republicans in congress initially condemned T**** and his coup attempt, but later defended him and justified the coup attempt in the second impeachment. That is solid evidence of the Republican Party’s moral collapse. I call it moral rot. Prominent Republicans like Kevin McCarthy went from initial anger to sniveling obsequiousness justified by crackpot justifications that would convince no one except hyper-partisans. 
• T**** knowingly refused to call off the mob of traitors. Although he tried to hide, allowing no photos or other means of tracking his behavior during the critical three hours of violent insurrection, the evidence is rock solid that he knew he could have called it off. T**** intentionally and knowingly refused to call the mob off.
• The evidence presented yesterday made it undeniable that T**** intended to subvert the election. Instead of calling the mob off, he was calling Republican senators and asking them to delay certifying the vote. 
• During the coup attempt, T**** posted a couple of Tweets that he knowingly intended to further inflame the mob of traitors to get them to stop the vote certification. He specifically targeted Mike Pence and the mob responded to his incitement once they became aware of it.  
• The evidence presented yesterday made it undeniable that T**** supported the traitors on 1/6, seeing them as justifiably angry and justifiably attacking the capitol because of his lie that the election was stolen.
• Only after it became clear that his coup attempt was going to fail, the ex-president called it off, praising the traitors as people he loved and “patriots.”  T**** undeniably saw his violent coup attempt as justified and patriotic. Once law enforcement was mobilizing to shut the insurrection down, T**** reluctantly and half-heartedly asked the violent mob to leave.
• Republicans in congress refused to seriously investigate the 1/6 coup attempt by an independent commission. That created situation where there would be no serious congressional or Department of Justice[1] investigation. That would have left the evidence forever buried or dribbling out in a complex story that few average people would ever piece together on their own. Democrats wanted an independent commission, but Republicans rejected the idea. That Republican Party refusal left Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) the choice of setting up a bipartisan panel of House members or leaving T**** free to lie about 1/6 without a counter narrative available to the American people.

Sources:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3570067-five-takeaways-from-thursdays-jan-6-hearing/

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3570056-trump-accused-of-dereliction-of-duty-in-dramatic-jan-6-hearing/

https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-panel-hearing-3e3dc618ed8cee37147cf6a792c0c0fa

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/21/jan-6-hearing-trump-behavior/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/22/jan-6-hearing-revelations-trump-inaction/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/22/trump-election-is-over/

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/january-6-hearing-trump-actions/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62263279

Footnote: 

1. The evidence I am aware of so far indicates that the House 1/6 Committee investigation and the evidence it is publicly showing prodded the DoJ into maybe taking a more serious look at what happened than it had previously. Before the 1/6 Committee hearings started, it wasn't obvious to me that the DoJ was going to do anything about it. If there was a major DoJ investigation before the committee made T****’s coup attempt impossible to ignore, I am unaware of it.

A comment on incompetent, life-threatening Republican anti-abortion laws

The GOP is mindlessly hell-bent on inflicting major social engineering on American government, society and commerce. It is in a raging frenzy to do it to us. Simple, black and white thinking and policy choices dominate childish Republican thinking in a complex, nuanced adult world of shades of gray. 

That is not only grossly incompetent, it is evil because it predictably will kill some people. Fascist GOP abortion laws exemplify its brainless savagery. The Washington Post writes:

Hospitals and their lawyers are being forced to interpret statutory terms that don’t correspond to medical practice and language. These laws often demand a degree of certainty doctors can’t provide. Katie McHugh, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indiana, tells me doctors must now tell patients that a given procedure is “what she would medically recommend,” but then inform the patient she can’t receive that treatment in her state. In other words, doctors in some states are becoming travel agents for abortion services.

In many states, the substantial risk to mental health (e.g., depression, suicidal ideation) might not “count” as a valid exception to abortion bans. And are the risks associated with traveling long distances for women determined to seek an abortion factored into the calculation? Definitive answers are nonexistent.

Most egregiously, McHugh adds, these laws do not envision chronic conditions. A pregnant woman at risk of liver failure, for example, may face debilitating conditions or even death down the road if she gives birth. But if state law requires imminent risk of death to perform the procedure, she may have to carry the pregnancy to term against her wishes and doctor’s advice. This is barbaric.

The blood of every pregnant woman who needlessly dies from Republican Party incompetence and stupidity is on the hands of all Republicans and their supporters. That includes all who vote for Republicans. They are ice-cold killers. 

Q: Is assigning blame to Republicans and supporters for needless (avoidable) deaths, and seeing them as “ice-cold killers”, reasonable and justifiable? Or, is it impossible to draft laws that more effectively deal with the ambiguities and complexities inherent in this matter, thereby reducing ambiguity and the attendant increased risk of death?

More evidence of Republican radical right anti-democratic authoritarianism and mendacity

Although we all knew it in our guts based on the evidence available at the time, more empirical evidence has come to light to buttress what our guts already knew. Good 'ole guts. Sometimes, they are right.[1] The New York Times writes:

New Findings Detail Trump Plan to Use Census for Partisan Gain

A new trove of memos and emails suggests that the plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census aimed to cause an undercount that would favor Republicans.

A new stash of documents obtained by Congress has confirmed that the Trump administration pushed to add a citizenship question to the census to help Republicans win elections, not to protect people’s voting rights, a House committee report concluded on Wednesday.

The documents provided the most definitive evidence yet that the Trump administration aimed to exclude noncitizens from the count to influence congressional apportionment that would benefit the Republican Party, the report concluded, and that senior officials used a false pretext to build a legal case for asking all residents of the United States whether they were American citizens.

Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had said in congressional testimony that the government decided to add the question because it required more accurate data on citizenship to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But the Supreme Court in June 2019 ruled that the rationale “appears to have been contrived,” and a week later the Trump administration abandoned its quest to ask about citizenship in the 2020 census.

“For years, the Trump administration delayed and obstructed the oversight committee’s investigation into the true reason for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, even after the Supreme Court ruled the administration’s efforts were illegal,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, chairwoman of the committee.  

“Today’s committee memo pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals,” she said.

Shameful conduct? That’s inexcusable wuss. 

If what Maloney said is true, how about calling it illegal because it is illegal? Why do Democrats not have the guts to call a liar a liar, a lawbreaker a lawbreaker, a criminal a criminal, or a traitor a traitor? WTF is their effing problem with speaking blunt truth? Do Dem elites really think shying away from and softening truth that is inconvenient for fascist Republican thugs and liars going to get some benefit for them or the country? If that is what they are thinking, if one assumes that they are thinking at all, they and their guts are just plain wrong.

Our guts are just fine, but Democratic Party leadership guts are broken.

Footnote: 

1. When it comes to divining the rhetoric and behavior from the always mendacious, fascist Republican Party elites, our guts are right about 97% of the time. Their denials and assertions of innocence are overwhelmingly lies, slanders and bullshit.

An exercise in psychology

I was gonna say “an exercise in futility,” and I know we’ve beaten this dead horse enough times to the point of rigor mortis, even petrification, but I gotta ask one more time…

Why do people still support Trump?

Take a walk on the wild side and put yourself in the mindset of a Trump supporter.  Explain that kind of "Trump loyalty" to me like I’m a five-year-old (a la Denzel Washington in “Philadelphia”).  Because I really don’t get it.  It’s foreign to me.

Thanks for posting and explaining it to me.