1/6 Select Committee

Assuming Tangle covers it tomorrow, I’d wager it will have the best commentary on it

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Don’t mean to offend anybody, but I’m pretty disappointed in the sentiments expressed here. These hearings are going to connect the dots on a conspiracy to overthrow our government via a violent insurrection. This is the biggest threat to our democracy since the civil war and it is still in progress. You are not going to get the full story via some edited sound bites. People here are arguably much more engaged than the average citizen so I can only imagine that these hearings are not going to reach the apathetic masses that really ought to see it. Really worried for the future of our country these days and the comments here aren’t giving me any hope.

Yup, and those dots will be connected whether I or anyone else watches or not. It would be an even bigger deal if the Attorney General decides not to arrest people because of ratings.
Also, you know exactly which people should be watching this, and it’s not people like those on this board who already know the story. It’s the people who cling to false beliefs who need to be kicked by a horse upside the head.

Chris hayes has covered this quite well over the past year. I think the violence at the capitol was more of a public tantrum than plan A. Trumps legal team wanted this to go back to the key states where the state legislatures could either reject the initial results or over rule it completely. We owe a lot, maybe the entire democracy, to Pence for holding firm and shutting off that idea. The violence if anything probably helped him realize the shit Trump had created and the need to move on.

The real issue is the voting rights acts in these same states have been modified to make it easier for the partisan legislatures to take control of results. A single Raffensburger will not be able uphold election results in 24. Maybe this ends up biting Trump because he needs a majority of trumpy support in the state legislature, but that is where the real risk lies going forward.

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Republicans were in unanimous agreement during January 6 that what was happening needed to stop. They don’t want to talk about that now, but they have been completely silent on the legal changes going on since then that would enable plan A in 2024.

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I am not offended, but if you plan to watch from beginning to end, you and i have different methods of collecting and understanding information, as well as time and priorities.
I read news much more than i watch. It is faster for me, and it gives me a chance to digest analysis at the same time as fact. It is also easier to go back and re-examine something i missed.
I am left to wonder a little at why this investigation has taken so long. I realize that some interviewees have made it difficult with refusals, and there is a lot of data, but it feels partly political too. But given how large a report i expect to be delivered, i won’t be able to synthesize on the fly.
I also don’t expect to be surprised. Trump’s legal attempts to stop election certification at the state level all failed, so he tried to get pliant congresspersons to hold up electoral certification while simultaneously encouraging a violent uprising to accomplish the same.
One small takeaway for me is say what you will about anything else Mike Pence and Dan Quayle have ever done, they did their duty this time.

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Same here. Sometimes people link to videos and I think “Where’s the transcript?”

I’m not watching, but I am.inyerested in what they have found. Will be interesting to see if they have any smoking guns, but I doubt it. Trump has spent a lifetime learning how to avoid blame.

According to the NYT, " All of the major broadcast networks plan to carry the hearing live, as do the major cable news networks, with the exception of Fox News.

So Americans are going to try to tune into their favorite prime time TV shows and discover they’ve been pre-empted by politicians. Yes, they should say “I need to learn about this, it is extremely important”. I expect they will say " #$@ that" and switch to cable entertainment or streaming or games or anything to avoid thinking about this stuff".

I don’t think prime time is the best political move for the Ds.

Are there any “favorite prime time TV shows” still on broadcast TV? Particularly in mid June?

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Ryan Kelly, a GOP candidate for Michigan governor, has been arrested by the FBI for his role in the 1/6 attack on the Capitol.

Yeah, running the hearings in dead June is probably an advantage.

I knew network TV was down, but don’t follow enough to know how much. I just looked at Emmys by network, that was eye-opening.

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That’s interesting. They started with a big field in the R primary. But five of them were disqualified due to fraud in nomination signatures. That included the front runner and biggest spender.

So they are down to five including: “Kelly is a former Allendale Township planning commissioner who gained a following in 2020 when he protested removal of a Confederate statue in his hometown and organized a large anti-Whitmer protest at the Michigan Capitol that resulted in armed demonstrators entering the building.”

In Fucking Michigan!!

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The unfortunate truth is that many people (who care) are entrenched in their stance and would need a credible (in their eyes) person from “their side” to be the deliveryman of news that is contrary to what they currently believe. I myself will not watch. I will watch a recording of the proceedings if people here tell me that this wasn’t mostly political theatre.

The admission of being wrong is viewed as a weakness in society. This (and the willingness to be wrong) is in fact the primary trait that I look for in someone with whom I engage. I admit that I don’t hold strong opinions on many things; but at the same time I distrust most sources.

This is where I think the committee hearings will shed some new light. What happened was certainly not plan A but characterizing it as a public tantrum is not helpful imo. This was a coordinated attack.

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Agree this is a huge concern. Not sure how to counter it, given the current supreme court.

This is the main problem right here imo. Much of politics is of course theater, but that leads people to believe that it’s all for show. Media portrays everything as a partisan struggle so it seems like every issue can be dismissed as posturing.

This is fundamentally different imo. This is not some fabricated Benghazi scandal. We all saw this assault on the very concept of our democracy happen in real-time and it should be treated with the gravity it deserves imo. Not sure how to convey that to people who seem determined to look the other way as we devolve into autocracy that’s where we are right now.

When the hearings are over, I would like to know if the hearings were (mostly) political theatre. If not, then I will watch recordings of them. I do not need to see them in real-time.

I guess I’d ask what you mean by political theater then. Sometimes the theater part is necessary to get the information across. Were the impeachment hearings political theater?

Just so I’m clear - I probably won’t be watching from start to finish either, but I will be paying close attention to anything new that is revealed as part of the testimony.