Be There, It Will Be Wild  🌻🌻🌻

Chaos and Carnage:  Last night’s January 6^th hearing was impressive, deserving high marks for presentation, organization, and content. Although much of what was shown wasn’t new, as promised, there was some damning new information and new disturbing video clips from the insurrection as well as shrewd use of videoclips from several of the Committee’s interviews of members of the FG’s team combined with live appearances from one of the members of the Capitol police who’d been bounced off the concrete by the “tourist” crowd and also by a documentarian who’d been imbedded with those charming Proud Boy insurrectionists, some of whom were not so coincidentally indicted for sedition earlier this week.  In addition, it’s probably not a stretch to believe that a few Republican members of Congress, the ones who are still calling the attack on the capitol building a benign “tourist outing” were less than pleased to hear Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney, who together with Democratic Chair Bernie Thompson, ran last night’s performance, reveal that the Committee is aware that some of them asked the Former Guy about getting pardons before he finally fled back to his Mar a Lago rat hole. Funny thing about asking for a pardon is that it reveals that you knew you did something bad.  One of those members of Congress who wanted one is Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry who had tried to get his man at Justice, Jeff Clark, promoted to Acting Attorney General so that he could overturn the election results in several key states. He is already squawking loudly about the pardon accusation, an indication that it’s likely true.  Perry by the way, is one of those who refused to show for an interview.  As to those whose interview snippets were shared last night, suffice it to say that the oddly filtered Ivanka might no longer be her daddy’s favorite as her clip revealed that she believed what former Attorney General Bill Barr said in his shared clip, that he’d told her father that claims of widespread election fraud were “bull shit.” A clip of her husband’s interview was included as well and though Jared’s didn’t shed much new light on the events surrounding the insurrection, his slimily haughty statement that he believed that assertions by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that he and his team would quit if the FG didn’t stop the coup were just more whining, and anyway he was too busy working up pardons for people like his own father to have time for any performative petulance.  Does anyone need more of a  confirmation that Jared really is an arrogant, self-serving POS?  A few more observations:  According to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, as suspected, it was VP Pence, the guy who the FG was okay seeing hung from the rafters, who called out the National Guard not the FG who really didn’t want to stop the “festivities;”  Liz Cheney, who will go down in history as having stood on principle to defend democracy, has probably sealed her fate, it’s more doubtful than ever that she’ll be able to win her primary in heavily FG friendly Wyoming; there’s definitely more brewing at the Department of Justice, we’ll just have to wait and see what and unfortunately that could take a lot of time; and it’s fair to assume that there will be more implicating Easter eggs dropped during subsequent hearings, with the next one scheduled to air on Monday morning.  Of course anyone watching Fox’s primetime line up missed all of this as they were saw only non-stop counterprogramming sans ads from the usual suspects.

And:  The news out of Michigan grows odder by the day.  Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, one of the right wing’s favorite targets, is up for reelection in the fall and though the Republicans would really like to send her packing, they seem to be having trouble retaining candidates of their own.  Several Republican gubernatorial wannabees were excluded from the primary ballot last week, something to do with widespread signature fraud on their nominating petitions.  Yesterday, Ryan Kelley, one of their remaining candidates was arrested on charges related to his participation in the January 6^th insurrection. Just an ordinary day in screwy swingy Michigan, and who’s to say if being arrested for participating in a violent coup will keep him from winning the primary?  And because New York isn’t immune from political insanity and the Republican party seems all in on supporting haters, House Republican Party leadership member Elise Stefanik, the third most senior member of the Republican’s House hierarchy, gifted one of her endorsements to Congressional wannabee/one time Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino who praised Hitler last year for “inspiring his followers,” describing the fascist dictator as “the kind of leader we need today.”  Paladino has been trying to do some clean up saying that he didn’t really mean what he said but to be clear, it’s fair to assume that he did as it’s fully in character, he’s also has had some racist things to say about Michele Obama and once said that he hoped that her husband Barack “catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford.”   Now is as good a time as any to mention that the FG endorsed candidate for Senate in Arizona, Blake Masters, who believes that the FBI set up January 6^th  blames Black people for all gun violence, of course he does.   Lastly, don’t be surprised if SCOTUS, where a few Justices have been experiencing some threats of their own this week, releases the much awaited abortion and/or gun decisions today.  Though those threats against the Justices aren’t a good thing, apparently their lives are worth more than those of school children and the rest of us.  We know that because Congress, Republicans included, have rushed to provide them with more protections, things other than doors and mental health screenings.