Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - U.S. House Select Committee on the J6 Attack

I am not just bothered but agitated regarding not just investigative news reports, but statements by members.

First, I do not believe the committee will be able to adequately present a narrative which has any impact on either those who have already made up their minds or those who are waiting for the evidence, unless they begin the public hearings with an examination of the predication of many of the attacking insurrectionists or the Trump loyalists who bought into the idea there was actual, real, detectable fraud. They should begin with a witness panel which includes Powell, Giuliani, Lindell, Navarro, etc, and examine each charge these people have brought forward as evidence of fraud, and address them one at a time. Of course you have Powell, no reasonable person would believe anything I say, or Giuliani, I didn't have time to investigate the allegations, and then you have Lindell, I have the evidence, and Navarro, there were irregularities. Each should be publicly exposed for the fantasies they embrace, and let the public decide who has a credibility problem. They could start with Trump's pressure call to Raffensperger. In that hour long call Raffensperger refutes each claim Trump made about fraud, based on Georgia state investigations.

Second, I have to ask, is any Man above the law???? Already we have a putative case that the rich are above the law and now should we allow the political class to be above the law? If the DoJ does not investigate Trump and any one in his orbit who participated in J6, for possible criminal activities revolving around the insurrection, we may as well burn the Constitution, for we are lost. I can't help but think the only reason DoJ is not investigating is the possible political repercussions. All I have to type is Republican leadership does not care if Garland does not investigate .... there will be repercussions anyway.

So if you have a hankering to commit crimes .... get yourself elected to Congress or the WH .... you will be above the law.

Eh, a little weed, a little shortcut on the Building Codes: We forgive you.

It's not like you raped a 13 year old girl, threatened to murder her family, defrauded thousands of people, and attempted to overthrow the government.

Had this been 1865, all of these unAmericans would have been rounded up and either hanged or deported to Ft Jefferson, almost immediately. Because they have not been, they have now concluded conspiracy to overthrow the government is not only OK but it is the thing which should be done, should your party not win an election. The intentional listlessness of the DoJ to pursue investigations into a conspiracy to overthrow the government is not only tantamount to placing everyone involved above the law but condones and endorses future anti-Democratic coups.

Democracy is in peril. I fear a failure to execute the mandates of my contractual agreement has been voided irreparably. There may be nothing left to do but to dissolve the binds of the Constitution and declare each citizen a sovereign citizen, beholden to no one or no state.

We are indeed lost. I will hold a candle light vigil tonight, mourning the passing of what was a once great Democratic state.

Has any Ranter wondered why both the boy blunder Jared and Ivanky testified before the J6 Committee under oath? Surely, this put a damper on their relationship with the corrupt and incompetent, insurrection fomenting "billionaire" orange clown, right?

Not if both knew that Saudi's Mohammed bin Salman was going to invest $2Bn into boy blunder's little dog and pony show's "investment fund" of which boy blunder has zero experience in running and managing. Oh! Did I mentions that MbS's own people strongly advised against it?

Side bar to a bit of U.S. history: When President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as Attorney General, Republicans had a hissy-fit and freaked out by passing an anti-nepotism law against presidents hiring family members.

Remember when Orange Clown Trump put boy blunder Jared into the White House (even after he failed a security clearance), Trump's Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled, essentially, that Trump could ignore the above mentioned law?

So who needs a corrupt and incompetent, insurrection fomenting "billionaire" orange clown dad and father-in-law, when you have an actual $2Bn dollars of your own and those billion dollars are real and not highly leveraged assets?

Could the boy blonder have negotiated with the J6 Committee that in exchange for his testimony, he would never be charged with a crime while working in the Trump Administration? Just spit-balling here. Because there is a lot of evidence that good ol' Jared shared a lot of classified information with MsB which lead to the death of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi with his newly acquired security clearance after Jared helped MbS come to power by sharing US intelligence withMbS?

Remember, right after Trump was sworn into office in 2017, Trump's very first visit foreign visit was to the Arab world? Shortly thereafter, MbS began arresting his royal political foes and family members, apparently using information from inside US intelligence agencies, which is how he came to power.

This should be an even bigger scandal requiring a counter intelligence investigation with treason and espionage charges in the end. Is this why certain Republicans are trying to go after the CIA in order to spy on it’s intelligence gathering of Jarvanka? Jared should be facing some serious charges over this, made worse by MbS ignoring ol' Joe and keeping oil prices artificially inflated hoping that Jared ends up back in power.

I'm just sayin'.

It's clear that Republicans support the overthrow of government, when they don't win national elections.

The main difference between fascism and socialism is their structure. Fascism is vertical hierarchy, or top-down. Socialism is horizontal and on the same plane with no hierarchy.

Try to explain this concept to conservatives, and their eyes glaze over and roll into their heads.

It's simple really. Fascism believes that the people at the top are better than the people at the bottom: White Christians are better than jews, gays, or bown skinned minorities.

Socialism is that everyone is equal and deserve/get the same as everyone else.

All that's needed is to take the accepted "14 Points of Fascism" and apply the test to him.

The Fourteen Points of Fascism

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.


2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of \u201cneed.\u201d The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.


3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.


4. Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.


5. Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.


6. Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.


7. Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.


8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.


9. Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.


10. Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.


11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free _expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.


12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.


14. Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

---It's easy to wave hands and dismiss this as a Lefty mirror image of the knee-jerk reactionary rhetoric of the Right until you apply the litmus test.

Well? How many of the above does Ron DeSanti score?

Your disingenuous simplification is misleading.

I am a pragmatic liberal. What that means is we face problems and situations which are not mentioned or even thought of during the time of the writing of the Constitution, and to limit governance to only the words and not the spirit of the Constitution would be to limit the US to nothing but a group of independent entities with an umbrella designation of the United States.

Conservatives may like to claim they adhere to the original words in the Constitution but you know they are not just disingenuous but in may cases outright lying. A case in point is the current draft for overturning Roe. J Alito talks about not being in the Constitution and therefore etc etc. Based on his argument and lack of restraint vis a vis stare decisis, he would lead the court to overturn every precedent from Marbury on. I mean after all we have to adhere to what is in the Constitution. This is nothing more than political/religious ideology and not Constitutional law.

So conservatives should be calling for return to 1789, to ensure we can not possibly face modern problems. I mean .... I like tearing up all the infrastructure in America .... I like not having a standing army .... I like making individual choices to go to war, or common sense health care prophylactics, or disbanding corporations ... in fact the govment can't tell me to do nothing cuz the Constitution doesn't say they can. Of course the states can do whatever they want, because they are local ... or maybe we should beat the state governments back .... personally I like city states .... frak the other city states .... if they solve a problem, thats their problem ...

I like where this is going .... I already have a mountaintop picked out .... only one road to it and it will be protected by .... well use your imagination

If it checks off eleven or more of the boxes in the Fourteen Points of Fascism, it's fascist, sorry.
I'm sure there's a similar "Fourteen Points of Communism" around somewhere and if a candidate or leader clicks off at least eleven or more boxes, then they are indeed communist.

Some species of camels have one hump and some have two, but it's fact that all camels do have humps.

It's not our fault that the Republican Party majority is embracing this, just as it's also not our fault that the majority now openly reject democracy.
They did this to themselves and I think it is a disservice to reasoned debate to pretend that an existing political ideology's name constitutes an illegitimate attack, when these individuals are defining themselves without any help from anyone else.

100% agree.

The issue is that the GOP wants all GOP'ers to be considered "Law and Order." The GOP is infamous for alternative facts (up is down, down is up...don't believe your lying eyes) - ask Kellyanne CONway.

A few thoughts: First, the J6 committee is playing the long game. Second, Liz Cheney (in particular) is feeding out rope for the miscreants to hang themselves. Every claim she has made so far has proved out, just ask Rep Loudermilk, who keeps getting caught lying. Even Fox got burned, and is responding. Third, the narrative is slowly changing. As the information from the hearings percolates out, more people are becoming aware of the depth and breadth of the conspiracy. I think that trend will continue.

I've watched the full testimony of Rusty Bowers to the committee. Very powerful and heartfelt.

The subpoenas are a good indication that the grand jury is busy, and the seizures that the DoJ is getting close. Trump world will have to start meeting on golf courses to plan their strategy.

Just a reminder .... there are only three qualifications for a legally elected occupant of the WH ... there is no prohibition for those who have been indicted for any crime .... there is no prohibition for someone convicted of a crime .... and it is unknown if an occupant of the WH can pardon themself

Trump will become the first to win that distinction ... win an election after indictment, imprisonment, and following oath of fealty to himself .... auto-pardon for crimes against the US

America ... who knew crime pays

Although I think that there were nefarious undertakings going on during Trump's excursion to D.C., I think this was a meeting about his failing golf course. Of the folks identified in the photo, most are employees of the course, and the other activities in other photos seem to be about the course itself. The fellow in the red shirt is carrying marker flags - which I suspect are to identify points that need fixing on the course.

Just my take. I could be wrong.