With the first full week of hearings for the House select committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol now complete, nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the incident, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.
Six in 10 Americans also believe the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation, according to the poll.
In the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, 58% of Americans think Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot. That’s up slightly from late April, before the hearings began, when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52% of Americans thought the former president should be charged.
The key here is the Independents, 61% of whom believe Trump should be charged with a crime. That’s not good news for him.
This is good news as well:
Overall, 60% of Americans think the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation while 38% say it is not, the new ABC News/Ipsos poll found. That was evenly divided at 40% in the April ABC News/Washington Post poll, which also found that 20% of Americans had no opinion on the matter just two months ago.
I think the fact that it is a very sober, serious presentation really helps. Also, all the witnesses are Republicans which makes it hard to complain that it’s a purely partisan exercise. (They are saying it, of course, but that 20% or so of Republican voters and the GOP leaning Independents matter and they aren’t buying the whining.)
This post by Heather Cox Richardson on Luttig’s testimony is excellent:
On Thursday, Judge Luttig examined the ongoing danger to democracy and located it not just on former president Donald Trump and his enablers, but on the entire Republican Party of today, the party that embraces the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election, the party that continues to plan to overturn any election in which voters choose a Democrat.
“[T]he former president and his party are today a clear and present danger for American democracy,” Luttig reiterated to NPR’s All Things Considered.
I’ve been thinking a lot since Thursday of Luttig’s clear-eyed view of the dangers we face in this country today, and of his willingness to cast aside old political loyalties to call them out in order to protect our democracy. They remind me of nothing so much as Abraham Lincoln’s description of the way northerners reacted to the 1854 passage of a law permitting the spread of enslavement into western lands from which it had previously been excluded. The passage of that law woke up Americans who had not been paying attention, and convinced them to work across old political lines to stop oligarchs from destroying democracy. Northerners were “thunderstruck and stunned; and we reeled and fell in utter confusion. But we rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher’s cleaver” to push back against the oligarchic enslavers, Lincoln later said. Regardless of where they started politically, they stood up for democracy together. And while they came from different parties, he said, they were “still Americans; no less devoted to the continued Union and prosperity of the country than heretofore.”
Over the course of the next decade, that new coalition argued and struggled and took the nation in an entirely new direction. It fought and won a war that involved more than two million men and cost more than $5 billion, established our first national money, welcomed immigrants, created public colleges, invented the income tax, gave farmers land, built transcontinental railroads, and—finally—ended human enslavement in the U.S. except as punishment for a crime for which a person had been duly convicted.
And, of course, it saved the nation from those seeking to destroy it.
“[T]o my knowledge, I’ve never spoken publicly a single word of politics,” Luttig told NPR about his extraordinary statements. In a later note he added: “I wanted to do this for America and I understood I had an obligation to do it for America. It was my ‘moment’ in my life to stand up, step forward, and bear witness to what I believe and what I do not believe.”
Do you think that there is a meaningful constituency within your party, the Republican Party that is, willing to have good-faith conversations about this? And if so where are they?
As of the day that I testified, no, there are none, and there haven’t been for these couple of years. I’m not a politician, I don’t do politics, but that’s what I propose happen. And it’s with my fervent hope that some number of our elected leaders, at least, will hear the words that I spoke on Thursday and understand what I said, which is that they have an obligation, a high obligation, that they undertake by oath to act in the interest of America and Americans in contrast to their own personal political interests.
If you look at the most recent primaries, pro-Trump candidates are still competing across the country and winning on the lie that there was election fraud in 2020. How do you build trust in our democracy, in the idea that we can get to a better place in our country when you have people at these important high levels who are denying the 2020 election results?
You don’t and you can’t, and that’s why I testified Thursday that the former president and his party are today a clear and present danger for American democracy. And I specifically contrasted that with the circumstance, had it been so, that the former president and the Republican Party had stood down after the 2020 election and accepted the results. But as I said to the select committee on Thursday, that’s not what’s happened.
To this day, the former president and the Republican Party have insisted — and they persist in the claim — that the 2020 election was stolen, and not merely that, but they pledge to execute the same blueprint in 2024 that they attempted in 2020. But their every intention is if they do execute on that plan in 2024 that they will win in 2024 where they failed in 2020.
The January 6th hearings are clearly important for the country to understand what happened on that day and why it happened, and I know you feel that way, but many Republicans do not. They call the hearings an effort to divide. And so I wonder whether you think that they’re more likely to bring closure or further fuel this division that you say is destroying our democracy?
Well, when I turned in my statement to discussing the two political parties in the United States, the most important words to me … were that the two political parties in America are the political guardians of our democracy. That’s why I went on to say that it’s imperative that both parties end this one war for democracy and suggesting that it was the obligation of the Republican Party to begin that reconciliation.
We cannot have in America either political party behaving itself like the Republican Party has since the 2020 election. As long as that continues then we will have an unstable democratic order in the United States, and we will forever be fighting over American democracy. As I went on to say in my statement, the war for America’s democracy is not a war that America can win.
If the two political parties are going to be fighting literally over America’s democracy, that is a war that is endless, and it is destructive of the United States of America. And there is not a person in this country who can disagree with that. They can argue over you know whether, as the Republicans have continued to do, the 2020 activities of the former president in the party threatened democracy. They’re silly to even suggest that. But they cannot argue over the abstract point, the conceptual point that I made, which is if the two parties cannot agree to the orderly transfer of power in the United States then that war will continue, and as long as it continues we do not have democracy in the United States.
Do you think that the January 6th hearings that are going on right now might actually sort of break through and encourage politicians to maybe start to stand up on this issue?
Well, you know I’m a former judge and a lawyer, and to my knowledge, I’ve never spoken publicly a single word of politics. So count me as cynical as to politics and all politicians. Do I think that maybe these hearings can break through to some American patriots who are currently our political leaders? I hope with all my heart and soul that the hearings will break through to those political leaders.
I’m reporting with @eric_neugeboren from @TexasGOP convention in Houston, where the draft platform calls for requiring students to learn that life begins at fertilization and to listen to live ultrasounds. Story coming soon.
The party’s 2020 platform was *relatively* more moderate and economy-focused, after TX D’s made gains in 2018 statehouse races and w an unpopular Trump in the WH. Two years later, culture war issues and condemnation of Biden are at the forefront.
Right now convention delegates are debating a plank in the platform that calls homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in 2018 and 2020.
One delegate, David Gebhart, said the provision “does no benefit to the party” and calls for softening the language: “We are the Republican Party of Texas, not the Westboro Baptist Church.” Mix of laughter and boos.
Another delegate, Nate Criswell, says weakening the homosexuality language would be caving to political correctness. “People appreciate calling a spade a spade.” A third delegate mentions dildos and fisting before she is cut off.
On a voice vote, a motion to amend the homosexuality plank fails. Language calling it “an abnormal lifestyle choice” remains.
Decision to exclude @LogCabinGOP from @TexasGOP convention has been criticized by @DonaldJTrumpJr. A rare example of lack of consensus at this convention.
Big of Don Jr to say something but it’s not going to work. This is where they are going. A guy named Christopher Rufo is the GOP’s new Goebbels. And he’s not even trying to hide it. Here’s his latest:
Conservatives should start using the phrase “trans stripper” in lieu of “drag queen.” It has a more lurid set of connotations and shifts the debate to sexualization.
“Drag queens in schools” invites a debate; “trans strippers in schools” anchors an unstoppable argument.
Let the Left try to nitpick the phrase: we can say that “trans” is a stand-in for “transvestite” and we can show videos that are undeniably strip shows.
The “blackface for women” argument is the wrong approach because: (1) it adopts the frame of the Left, which traps conservatives in their identity games; (2) totally misses the main problem, which is the grotesque sexualization of children (not co-optation of the feminine).
“Trans strippers in schools” is a powerful frame to this debate and, if the Left chooses to engage in language games on that phrase, they will find themselves defending concepts and words that are deeply disturbing to most people. Let them get stuck in the linguistic mud.
The trick is to shift the language in a way that is factually accurate and has a plausible claim to neutrality, but attaches a new set of connotations to the concept that shifts the debate in your favor. The Left is very good at this; time for the Right to start playing.
Andrew Sullivan loved this guy when he was pushing the Critical Race Theory meme (it was Rufo’s baby)
He’s not so happy about him now.
As an open and proud admission of mendacity, cynicism and deliberate propaganda, this thread is really hard to beat. I feel like I have to take a shower after reading it. https://t.co/PfrgYqvCwV
Rufo’s also the guy who got the “teachers are groomers” meme off the ground. And as you can see he’s not even pretending that this is anything more than propaganda. Great stuff…
One of Cliff Schecter’s tweets caught my attention last night and pointed to a sharp, stiletto-edged reply by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to a Donald Trump whine about the Jan. 6 hearings.
#BREAKING When you go into Hunter Biden’s laptop, open Google, and search “who tried to violently overthrow the US government” this is what you get pic.twitter.com/XK9ESkdg0Q
Schecter replied, “This times a million/billion/kajillion. As I keep saying, Swalwell, as well as Ruben Gallego, Katie Porter and a few others have learned how to do this. Let them take the lead on messaging and rapid response.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a flair for it as well. Chalk it up to bartender experience.
Stop being outraged and hit back. It’s the only thing the authoritarian cult understands and the kind of fight people need to see from Democrats. Politeness these days comes across as weakness or fecklessness. On those occasions when Democrats hit back, Republicans will play the victim. They’ll play the victim even if you don’t.
“Victimhood is extremely important for all autocrats,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: “Mussolini to the Present, told Michael Kruse in April. “They always have to be the biggest victim.”
The extremist right and the rest of us do not just exist in parallel universes. We play by different rules. It is baffling to this day the reflex among many Democrats to view inoffensiveness and moderation as the key to winning votes and avoiding attacks from the right.
For God’s sake, Democrats trying to look bipartisan are praising doormat Mike Pence for not helping Donald Trump overthrow our democracy on Jan. 6. Former Republican consultant Stuart Stevens is done being polite.
During the 2010 senatorial primary in North Carolina, Democrat Cal Cunningham said to my face that the DSCC told him his Bronze Star would trump anything the right wing could throw at him. My first thought was, “And you believed them?” My second was, “Does John Kerry ring a bell?”
At the Democratic State Executive Committee meeting in Durham Saturday, one delegate rolled her eyes at Senate candidate Cheri Beasley’s TV ads as the bland products of talentless consultants. “She’s going to lose.”
In the age of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, in state in which over a third of voters are registered unaffiliated and (by my estimate) 58% voted for Trump in 2020, Beasley is running against Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted “Monster Truck” Budd. Voters in a mid-term won’t turn out for bland and inoffensive.
Democrats promise voters that when they get to Washington they are going to fight for them … without showing them any before elections they lose.
“Show me!” cried Eliza Doolitlle to foppish Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
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Dancer at Juneteenth celebration in Washington, D.C. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith. Source: Library of Congress.
Hey, it’s a long hard road, it’s a long hard road It’s a long, hard road, and before we’ll be free And before we’ll be free
— from “Handsome Johnny” by Richie Havens
Monday is a federal holiday, finally, a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. Not of the day Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863), but of the day official word reached Galveston, Texas that formerly enalaved people were now free: June 19, 1865. A horrific war fought to preserve the union and end slavery had concluded at the Appomattox courthouse in Virginia on April 9. It took until June for word to reach Texas what the war’s end meant for people still held as property in former slave states.
On June 17, 2021, propelled by nationwide protests over police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, both Black, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act declaring the day a national holiday, the first since Ronald Reagn declared Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday in 1983.
Actor Stephen Duncan as Union General Gordon Granger reads General Order No. 3 at Galveston’s Juneteenth celebration. Screen grab via KTRK – Houston.
June 19, 2020 will not mark a deadly COVID-19 superspreader event sponsored in Tulsa, Okla. That will come tomorrow, sponsored by a very different Republican president than the one whose Emancipation Proclamation was read this day in the streets of Galveston, Texas in 1865.
The Washington Post Editorial Board provides this thumbnail sketch of the original Juneteenth:
AS U.S. troops gradually reasserted Union control over the defeated South in the spring of 1865, units under Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Tex., flying the American flag and bearing news of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. They marched through town reading General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor.”
As the current (and temporary) occupant of the Oval Office is learning now, simply signing a declaration does not change reality or culture. The promise of Juneteenth remains unrealized 155 years later.
Even as former slaves celebrated, white southerners had set about ensuring that equality between former masters and former slaves would never become reality. The North won the Civil War and lost Reconstruction. One hundred years of Jim Crow followed, memorialized with statues and monuments erected to a Dixie where old times are not forgotten. Those are only recently coming down.
Hundreds of statues erected decades after the war were reminders not just of Confederate heroes, but a declaration of just who is in charge. Much of human behavior among our neighbors is not so much deep strategy as alpha dog behavior, showing who’s boss by barking loudly in the other dog’s face until he rolls over on his back and pees in the air. During the transition after the 2016 election, adviser to the incoming administration Sebastian Gorka declared as much on Fox News: “The alpha males are back.”
It took a Second Reconstruction, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, to begin uprooting the systemic racism knotted into the soil of 400 years of American history. Even 50 years after the King assassination, those we ripped up before remain viable and sprout anew whenever nonwhite Americans assert their Americanness and demand the equality Lincoln’s proclamation promised. Or whenever certain whites feel their cultural and political supremacy challenged.
For all their supposed reverence for the U.S. Constitution, many among our white, self-declared patriots would just as soon rip out the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. All their bluster, froth, and spittle cannot conceal the insecurity behind “White Fragility.” As they see it, for nonwhites to gain full Americanness, whites must surrender their alphaness. Blacks don’t want equal rights. They want “specialty rights.” The “boogaloo bois,” won’t have it. This is their country, by God, and they’ll burn it down before sharing it. For nonwhite Americans to be equal means they must be less. It is not so, but what they believe nonetheless.
Black Americans just want to be treated equally and not to live in fear when their children leave the house or when a police cruiser heaves into view.
So, here we are. Juneteenth again. One America demanding the nation live up to a promise unfulfilled. Another fighting against it while wrapped in the flag and armed to the teeth and itching for a second Civil War.
Update: This chilling short film (h/t Rude Pundit)
Watch an illustration of EJI's new report. While the 12 years after enslavement initially held great hope, the era gave way to devastating violence by white people against Black communities. Our history of racial injustice requires more attention to address the issues of today. pic.twitter.com/789ZeWOhly
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The 2022 Tribeca Film Festival wraps up this Sunday (please note that the At Home Online platform will run through June 26th). This year’s festival is a hybrid presentation, combining virtual access to select titles with in-person screenings at New York City venues. I’ve been gorging on films all week, so let’s dive in!
Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T. Rex *** – Flying saucer, take me away. In 1971, the year before Bowie brought Ziggy Stardust to Earth, T. Rex landed the glam rock mother ship with their breakthrough album Electric Warrior. Originally formed as the duo Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1967, songwriter-vocalist-guitarist Marc Bolan and percussionist/obvious Tolkien fan Steve Peregrin Took (aka Steve Porter) put out several albums of psychedelia-tinged folk before splitting in 1970. Mickey Finn replaced Took, and Bolan recruited additional personnel and shortened the name to T. Rex in 1970.
Bolan’s coupling of power chord boogie with pan-sexual stage attire turned heads, making him the poster boy for what came to be labeled “glam-rock” (although, to my ears Bolan’s songs are rooted in traditional Chuck Berry riffs and straight-ahead blues-rock…albeit with enigmatic and absurdist lyrics). Tragically, Bolan died in a car accident in 1977 at 29. An amazingly prolific songwriter, he left behind a substantial catalogue and a legion of fans.
Ethan Silverman’s film traces Bolan’s career, weaving in footage from the sessions for the 2020 multi-artist tribute album Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T. Rex (Silverman was also involved in the production of the album). In addition to archival Bolan interviews and T. Rex performances (much of the latter taken from Ringo Starr’s 1973 Born to Boogie doc), tribute album participants like U2, Nick Cave Joan Jett, and Rolan Bolan weigh in. There are also comments (some archival) from Gloria Jones, Elton John, David Bowie, Billy Idol, Tony Visconti, Ringo and Cameron Crowe. While it may not be a definitive portrait, it’s a heartfelt nod to a rock icon whose lasting influence cannot be overstated. (Venue only)
Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids *** (United States) – Andrew Jenks’ documentary connects the dots between two uniquely American traditions: Appalachian folk art, and shoppers trampling each other at Black Friday sales (“USA! USA! USA!”). But seriously…Cabbage Patch Kids. I’m old enough to remember the phenomena, but when they hit store shelves in the early 80s, I was in my mid-20s and too old to care. Irregardless, I found some parts of the origin story weirdly fascinating, particularly the brick-and-mortar “hospital” where purchasers could view their doll’s “delivery” (from a head of cabbage) and then sign official “adoption papers” (more akin to Motel Hell than a Disney movie). And then there were the plagiarism lawsuits. Not essential viewing, but if you’re in the mood for a fun wallow in 80s nostalgia, you’ll dig it (hey…it’s even narrated by Neil Patrick Harris). (Available via At Home portal)
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song **** (United States) – Several years ago, I saw Tom Jones at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Naturally, he did his cavalcade of singalong hits, but an unexpected moment occurred mid-set, when he launched into Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song”. Jones’ performance felt so intimate, confessional and emotionally resonant that you’d think Cohen had tailored it just for him. When Jones sang, I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice, I “got” it. Why shouldn’t Tom Jones cover a Cohen song? I later learned “Tower of Song” has also been covered by the likes of U2, Nick Cave, and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
A truly great song tends to transcend its composer, taking on a life of its own. The reasons why can be as enigmatic as the act of creation itself. In an archival clip in Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s beautifully constructed documentary, the late Cohen muses, “If I knew where songs came from, I’d go there more often.” Using the backstory of his beloved composition “Hallelujah” as a catalyst, the filmmakers take us “there”, rendering a moving, spiritual portrait of a poet, a singer-songwriter, and a seeker. (Venue only)
The Integrity of Joseph Chambers ***½ (United States) – This psychological thriller has a slow burn, but really gets under your skin. Early one morning, a white-collar father of two (Clayne Crawford) rolls out of his warm bed and readies himself to go deer hunting. His half-awake (and concerned) wife reminds him he has never gone hunting by himself and has limited experience with firearms. Undeterred, he insists that the best way to get experience is to “just go out and do it.” After stopping at a friend’s house to borrow his pickup truck (and a rifle), he heads for the woods. What could possibly go wrong? Anchored by Crawford’s intense performance, writer-director Robert Machoian has fashioned a riveting tale infused with a dash of Dostoevsky and a dollop of Deliverance. (Available via At Home portal)
Lakota Nation vs. The United States ***½ (United States) – The history of the Black Hills is a microcosm of America’s “founding” …discovery, expansion, exploitation, and genocide (and not always in that order). I put “founding” in quotes because, of course, “someone” was already here when Columbus (and eventually, the Pilgrims) landed. In the case of the Black Hills (1.2 million acres encompassing adjoining sections of South Dakota and Wyoming), those residents were the Očéti Šakówiŋ (aka the Sioux Nation).
Writer-director-narrator Layli Long Soldier makes it clear in the introduction to her film that it is not going to be a chronological history, with reenactments of key events. In other words, don’t expect a Ken Burns joint here…but that’s a good thing, because essentially her documentary is a tone poem that embodies the spirit of the Oyate people and beautifully conveys their deep connections to the Black Hills (after all, Long Soldier is a poet).
There is plenty of history in the film; sadly, most of it bleak, revealing an endless string of broken treaties and general lack of respect for sacred land (from the Indian Wars of the 1800s to President Trump’s boorish Fourth of July rally at Mt. Rushmore in 2020). But Long Soldier holds out hope for the future as well, with profiles of longtime Native American activists and a new generation of community leaders and organizers. Powerful. (Venue only)
My Love Affair With Marriage *** (Latvia/United States/Luxembourg) – It’s a safe bet that the most oft-asked question throughout history (well, after “Where’s the restroom?”) is “What is love?”. Philosophers, poets, writers, psychologists and even scientists have tackled this age-old query, and come up with just as many disparate explanations. This lack of consensus informs the clever conceit behind animator Signe Baumane’s mixed-media feature. Baumane’s semi-autobiographical study follows “Zelma” as she navigates the various passages of sexual self-awareness from childhood to adulthood…which then presents her with the complexities of love and relationships. Zelma’s vignettes are interspersed with neuroscience/biochemistry analyses done in the style of high school educational films (remember those?), with the odd musical number thrown in. Funny, touching and insightful. (Available via At Home portal)
Nude Tuesday *** (New Zealand/Australia) – I must warn you: this film is complete gibberish. Literally…the dialog is spoken in a made-up language. Frankly, I was fully prepared to find this gimmick annoying, but thankfully a) there are subtitles and b) the film is nonetheless entertaining. Writer-director Armagan Ballantyne’s off-the wall dramedy concerns middle-aged couple Laura and Bruno (co-screenwriter Jackie van Beek and Damon Harriman), who have hit a roadblock in their marriage. Bruno’s mother browbeats them into attending a couple’s retreat, to rekindle their passion. The resort is lorded over by a free-spirited sex guru (played with aplomb by Jemaine Clement). Vacillating between riotous cringe comedy and surprising sweetness, the film also pokes gentle fun at “self-actualization” culture (reminiscent of Bill Persky’s 1980 satire Serial). (Available via At Home portal)
The Wild One *** (France) – Tessa Louise-Salomé directs this biography of theater and film director Jack Garfein. A Czechoslovakian-born Holocaust survivor, Garfein (who passed away in 2019) only directed two feature films, The Strange One (1957) and Walk on the Wild Side (1961); but each was notable for tackling then-taboo issues (homosexuality in the former and rape in the latter). Garfein tells his own story, with a wealth of archival clips and photographs woven throughout. Most affecting are his recollections of the concentration camps, and how this harrowing experience informed his work as an artist. He also recalls his longtime marriage to actress Carroll Baker (which I was previously unaware of) and his involvement with The Actor’s Studio in New York (he later moved to Hollywood and co-founded Actors Studio West). An engrossing and intimate portrait. (Available via At Home portal)
We Might As Well Be Dead **½ (Germany/Romania) – We might as well be deadpan. Natalia Sinelnikova’s (political satire? black comedy? psychological thriller?) was a puzzler for me. Or maybe it caught me on a bad day. An insular community of apartment building residents turn on each other after one resident’s dog goes missing. The building’s live-in security person (Ioana Iacob) desperately tries to corral the creeping paranoia and hysteria.
Her stress is exacerbated by her daughter, who has locked herself in the bathroom and informed Mom that she has “the evil eye” and is cursed by effective thoughts and dreams. While Sinelnikova and co-screenwriter Viktor Gallandi make intriguing allusions to Stasi-era East Germany and the Jewish diaspora, the film never gels; at best, it’s a glorified remake of the Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”. (Available via At Home portal)
You have, of course, heard by now about the tour of the Capitol Executive Office Building Congressman Loudermilk of Georgia gave to constituents on January 5th. It turns out that at least one of the people on that tour was taking suspicious pictures of various entrances and security checkpoints in the building and later filmed himself at the insurrection threatening Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Jerry Nadler and Chuck Schumer. Mensa all the way.
Wellll…. Yesterday, the capitol police arrested a Stephen Colbert film crew inside the Capitol building while they were doing an allegedly unauthorized bit with Triumph The Comic Insult Dog. (I’m not kidding.) It cause quite a brouhaha.
GOP GA Rep Loudermilk: you will undoubtedly have seen me and my family on the news because we are now under a ruthless and false attack by the January 6 committee because they have decided they want to push a narrative that somehow I gave reconnaissance tours of the Capitol
They have looked at the evidence and they know it’s false…Adam Schiff, a member of the January 6th committee, illegally..brought Stephen Colbert’s comedy team into the Capitol and left him unescorted at night. And they were arrested.
So while they’re accusing me of giving illegal tours of the Capitol, they are giving illegal tours of the Capitol. Who’s going to hold them accountable?
I’d say it was the silly season except it’s actually not silly at all. Loudermilk’s constituents were threatening people’s lives. On camera. Proudly.
But it is very, very stupid. Loudermilk doesn’t seem to realize how ridiculous it is that Colbert’s film crew and the Insult Dog were arrested while his psychopathic “guests” have been held accountable for nothing.
Earlier in the day, the production team and Triumph puppeteer Robert Smigel were spotted around the Capitol filming a segment during the third day of the open Jan. 6 hearings; Triumph’s Twitter page also shared photos of the cigar-chomping dog on hand in the Capitol:
Later that evening, after the building was closed to the public, the group either remained in or returned to the Longworth House Office Building to film additional material when they encountered U.S. Capitol Police, who detained the group and charged them with unlawful entry.
“On Wednesday, June 15 and Thursday, June 16, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was on-site at the Capitol with a production team to record interviews for a comedy segment on behalf of The Late Show,”a CBS spokesperson said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Their interviews at the Capitol were authorized and pre-arranged through Congressional aides of the members interviewed. After leaving the members’ offices on their last interview of the day, the production team stayed to film stand-ups and other final comedy elements in the halls when they were detained by Capitol Police.”
According to Deadline, the production team was arrested while they were filming outside the offices of two Republican members of Congress, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Lauren Boebert.
“On June 16, 2022, at approximately 8:30 p.m., U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) received a call for a disturbance in the Longworth House Office Building,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. “Responding officers observed seven individuals, unescorted and without Congressional ID, in a sixth-floor hallway. The building was closed to visitors, and these individuals were determined to be a part of a group that had been directed by the USCP to leave the building earlier in the day.”
The USCP added, “This is an active criminal investigation, and may result in additional criminal charges after consultation with the U.S. Attorney.” While Capitol police did not reveal the names of the seven people arrested, the Associated Press confirmed that Smigel and Late Show producers were among those detained.
The statement glorifies a particular concept of nationhood. Nations are not, according to its authors, a form of political organization with strengths and limitations, successful in some places and dysfunctional in others. Nations are “the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.”
If nations are to save us from the imperium, one would expect them to operate differently from the nations of today. But read a little deeper into the statement and you discover that nothing really new is proposed on the international front. The statement makes clear that not all nations are “capable of self-government.” And it allows “capable” nations to make trade treaties and defensive alliances.
So what are the allied nations to do about failing states? The statement suggests that the great problem of the world is that well-functioning nations have insufficient sovereignty. But the real trouble arises from malfunctioning nations — those that implode (by collapsing within) or explode (by expanding aggressively).
Self-governing nations, acting in defensive alliances to advance their own interests, will naturally seek to minimize the risks of implosion and explosion. Which is exactly the thought process that NATO and its allies have followed through the more than 70-year reign of the internationalists.
“National Conservatism,” as defined by the statement, doesn’t call for much change in facing the rather conspiratorial-sounding imperium. Rather, after the throat-clearing about globalism, the statement turns to its real concerns: the internal operation of nations.
“Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private,” the authors declare. In regions of a nation where the moral vision is corrupted by “immorality … national government must intervene energetically to restore order.”
Policies around family, immigration, race and education will be analyzed through this same prism — the national interest as defined by “Christianity and its moral vision.” Deviations (presumably “immoral”) will no doubt be corrected by that same energetic national government.
It is tempting to point out that this supposedly new statement — with its faceless conspiracy of the globalist imperium, its exaltation of a cultural coherence that never existed, and its casual licensing of government power to enforce conformity — has an awful lot in common with fascism.
But it is perhaps more useful to note that self-named National Conservatives are building their house on sand, as the Bible might put it. There are as many views of the Christian mission on Earth as there are readings of the U.S. Constitution. The idea that a more overtly Christian nation would be a more harmonious nation — or even a more peaceful nation — has zero support from the bloody and contentious history of the past 2,000 years.
Tolerance, open-mindedness and compromise, on the other hand, have an impressive track record on those too-rare occasions when people give them a chance.
I think America has tried from time to time and the Bill of Rights has given us a pretty good road map when we decided to use it responsibly. We haven’t gone full-bore offical fascism yet but it looks like there are a lot of people out there eager to give it a try.
To the extent there is any kind of intellectual movement behind what we’re seeing on the American right today, I’m afraid this is it.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now allowing healthcare providers — including pediatricians and children’s hospitals — to order COVID-19 vaccines from a federal program for children between six months and 5 years old, a reversal from earlier this week when providers were prevented from preordering doses, White House officials told McClatchy.
The decision will expand access to pediatric coronavirus vaccines for parents across the state, which, under DeSantis’ previous position, would have been limited to seeking vaccines at a select number of community health centers and facilities participating in a federal retail pharmacy program.
The DeSantis administration is pushing back aggressively against the notion that its position has changed, with a spokesperson from the Florida Department of Health telling McClatchy that it never planned on preventing private healthcare providers from ordering doses. But those private providers were unable to place orders before a Tuesday deadline from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to obtain initial doses over the first two weeks of availability.
It could take up to two weeks for deliveries to arrive based on orders placed Friday. “We are encouraged that after repeated failures by Governor DeSantis to order COVID-19 vaccines even after every other state had ordered, the State of Florida is now permitting healthcare providers to order COVID-19 vaccines for our youngest children,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told McClatchy. “We believe it is critical to allow parents everywhere to have the choice to get their kids vaccinated and have a conversation with their pediatrician or healthcare provider.
DeSantis said a couple of days ago that kids don’t need the vaccine and it’s nothing but disinformation. Now he’s saying that they haven’t reversed anything by agreeing to allow parents to have their children vaccinated. He’s lying.
Over the course of the week, officials in DeSantis’ administration told reporters that COVID-19 posed “practically zero risk” to children and, contradicting federal public health agencies, claimed the risks of vaccinating infants outweighed the benefits. “We were distributing this when it first came out because a lot of people wanted it and there wasn’t enough supply. Well, there’s a surplus of this. Doctors can get it, hospitals can get it,” DeSantis said. “But there’s not going to be any state programs, that are going to be trying to, you know, get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns.”
By the state refusing to pre-order, as every other state in the country did, Florida doctors are going to be delayed in getting the needed vaccines. And without a statewide program people without insurance are probably not going to be able to get them. But hey, what’s a few babies getting sick when you’re trying to cultivate a reputation as the biggest right wing troll on the planet so you can become president of the United States, amirite?
In a briefing with reporters on Friday afternoon, Dr. Ashish Jha, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said DeSantis’ initial stance was “unconscionable” and that developments over the last 24 hours marked an “important change.” “On whether this is a reversal or not, I will say the following: Yesterday, pediatricians in every state in the country could order vaccines, or had the opportunity to order vaccines for their offices, except for pediatricians of the state of Florida.
As of today, pediatricians now have that choice,” Jha said. “Something clearly changed between yesterday and today in the state of Florida. “The state of Florida intentionally missed multiple deadlines to order vaccines to protect its youngest kids,” Jha added. “Elected officials deliberately chose to delay taking action to deny Florida parents the choice of whether to vaccinate their children or not.”
Ron DeSantis is probably going to be the GOP nominee if not in 2024 then in 2028. And he is a monster.
