Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2020 U.S. House Select Committee on the J6 Attack

…besides, your buddy Donald Trump knows who NewsMax is and he counts on NewsMax to carry his lies and anti-democracy rhetoric.

The problem is, the hearing had not started yet. I suppose the voices in Carlson’s head told him there would be lies.

All of us are not tuned in to conservative news or its providers, Rick. We aren't as much tuned in to liberal news or its providers either.

I watched the insurrection. I laughed and laughed. It happened on my birthday.

One of my neighbors out in the swamp was a rich Trumpy QAnon weirdo. He told me sh*t was gonna go down on the 6th. Biden and Harris, Hillary Clinton, and many others would be arrested and I guess charged with the massive voter fraud that they were all sure occurred.

Every conservative in America seemed to know about it, the fist pumpers in Congress included. It was gonna be a really big deal and nationally televised.

The rally attendees a few blocks away knew about it...some came prepared to be a part of it...and when he told them to march to the Capitol and fight, those idiots thought they were "taking back their country" and that Trump would be taking care of arresting Biden and Clinton, et al.

It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life. The most jaw-droppingly stupid attempt to steal an election that has ever occurred. And the most unlikely to succeed.

The surprising thing to me is that no one told the Capitol Police and that no one was prepared for a riot. But no one ever took those QAnon predictions seriously...

The rioters themselves were quickly taken to task for their crimes. Some have admitted their stupidity and that they were duped into believing a lie. Others continue to live in a Trump fantasy world.

Now some higher up heads are gonna roll. All of them were fools, doing the bidding of a madman. They deserve to go to jail just like the rioters.

Unlike some of you, I have absolute faith in American democracy.

Latest numbers I have is 862 people have been charged, arrested in the 1-6 capital insurrection. 306 have entered guilty pleas and another 20 found guilty and is growing as more come to trial. The wheels of justice are turning slowly, but turning, nonetheless. This whole thing should have been kept in the legal arena, the power lies with the FBI and DOJ, not with congress. Congress can’t charge anyone with anything, they’re more about public opinion, partisan politics than legality. The action, the power, justice served is with the FBI and the DOJ, not the house or congress.

I’m not one bit interested in left or right websites or TV channels. I could care less about them. You’re going to get left and right-wing partisan propaganda from them and that’s all you’re going to get. Oh, to let one and all know what I think about the house investigation, I watched the Braves beat the Pirates 3-1 last night. Now in 4 days to a week I’ll check out the generic congressional ballots to see if they moved any. I’ll check out Biden’s approval ratings and the number of house seats at risk and compare numbers. Justice doesn’t lie in any house investigating committee, it lies within the FBI and the DOJ which are doing a good job in my opinion. Congress, just yak, yak, yak.

https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1

USCAPPD knew, so did all police in the area.

They were issued advisories for all 50 states AND DC.



They also knew that a STAND DOWN order was issued to the NatGuard.



They also asked for help and none was forthcoming, gee...wonder why.



So, it's not quite a case of no one told anyone or no one was prepared.
Law enforcement was clearly told to handle this with velvet gloves, or ELSE.

And the NatGuard, so plentiful during BLM protests and other incidents, was told they weren't needed or wanted.
And with regard to the DC NatGuard, there is a very interesting chain of command...it's not the Mayor of DC who gets to make that call and never was.
The president of the United States is the commander-in-chief for the District of Columbia National Guard.
Isn't that interesting...

The house committee j6 report was interesting. It was also kinda odd. The TV blocked out 4 hours for this show. The show was only 2 hours long so it was the same/same political thing for two hours. I guess the 2 hour show needed to have discussions and help understanding for the other 2 hours. I wonder if they are going to do that again.

Anyway, there were some things of interest. There was, for instance, a bunch of sitting politicians that were accused of asking Trump for presidential pardons. Nobody said why and nobody backed up the accusations. I can only assume that the next one will do that. If not then I can only assume that the Dems have taken a page from Fox and lied. We will, I guess, know in the fullness of time?

Given the huge number of people that have been questioned, and emails, and papers, and all the rest one would assume that they wouldn't accuse without the goods. Hopefully they are not going accuse without the goods again. If they do they are, sure as hell, not helping themselves.

I am really not interested in 2 more hours of talking heads doing their thing. Hopefully they won't do that again. Its really not either helpful or good for the Dems.

Other than that ...............

Financial wise, all 3 cable news networks made the right decision. FoxNews averaged 2.3 million viewers from 8-10 PM slot, they had 3 million last night. But the big winners were MSNBC who averaged 1.1 million viewers, they came in with 4.2 million total viewers, CNN which averages 660,000 rose to 2.6 million viewers. ABC which averaged 4.2 million viewers with prime-time regular scheduled program rose to 4.9 million CBS averaged 6.4 for their regular prime time shows dropped to 3.4 million while NBC which averaged 6.3 million, fell to 3.6 million.

By showing the hearings
ABC rose 0.7 million viewers over their average
CBS fell by 3 million viewers from their average
NBC fell by 2.9 million viewers from their average
CNN rose by 2 million viewers over their average
MSNBC rose by 3.1 million viewers over their average

Sticking with regular scheduled programs, FoxNews rose by 0.7 million over their average. No info on the breakdown of who watched them yet, i.e. Republicans, Democrats, independents. I suspect that will come later.

Fox News did not air the hearing. 3M viewes is their normal viewership.

3M out of 330M Americans.

True, but that 3 million vs their normal average viewership of 2.3 million. An increase in viewership. By the same token 18.7 million out of 320 million watched the hearings. I would reckon that well over half to three quarters or more of that 18.7 million were democrats who will be voting Democratic come November. I don’t know that yet, I’m still waiting for the partisan breakdown. You don’t have to be a political rocket scientist to figure out democrats are the one’s most interested and the ones to do most of the watching. I doubt many independents, too far away from an election for them to be interested and Republicans think the hearings are nothing more than a political vendetta against Trump, revenge for Trump defeating Hillary Clinton.

Don’t worry, I view most of these happenings through the lens of how it will affect the upcoming election. I did that with the leaked draft and with the Buffalo and Texas mass school shootings. It used to be things like this mattered, the needle would move one way or the other. But I don’t see that much anymore. I figure that is the result of today’s modern political era of polarization, the great divide and the super, mega, ultra-high partisanship we live in.

But yes, just taking a SWAG with no real numbers, I’d say at least 80% of those who watched were Democrats or Democratic leaning independents. Give it another 4-5 days to a week and we’ll see if the primetime hearings moved the needle.

The real reason for the prime-time hearings might be below. I may have electionitis when this is the real reason.

Primetime Jan. 6 hearing singed all parties — 4 predictions

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaig...earing-singed-all-parties-4-predictions/

From the above article:

“Takeaway #1: Merrick Garland cannot escape prosecuting Trump

The testimony and production make it practically impossible for Merrick Garland not to charge Trump and bring him to trial. It may still be a difficult step from riot to proving beyond a reasonable doubt Trump’s guilt, but the Democratic activist base is unlikely to accept anything less.

This demand is perilous for Garland. If Trump were to be tried and acquitted, he would walk straight back into the White House. Absent demands from the Democratic Party, Garland would not want to try Trump unless he was 99.9 percent certain of a guilty verdict. Now the pressure to bring him to trial will be immense.

And a plea bargain won’t cut it — not only is Trump highly unlikely to accept a plea deal, the Democratic base will absolutely demand a trial and jail time. As bad as President Biden’s domestic troubles are, he at least has high approval within his party. If his attorney general denies Democrats a Trump trial, it’s all over for Biden.”

Read the other 3 takeaways, there also interesting. Having these hearings in primetime it just might be Pelosi and company way to get Garland off his butt and prosecute Trump. Time will provide the answer.