Dens Balzs / WaPo:
Ignore the January 6 session? Michael Lutig explains why not.
J. Michael Lutig did more than just break down Trump’s claims that Penny could have stopped the election count. He gave a frightening analysis of American democracy on the verge and the role of the former president in pushing the country to the brink of further chaos.
Lutig was there because he had advised the vice president Mike Penny that Penny could not legally to do what President Donald Trump wanted to do: to intervene in the ratification process for the election census on 6 January and to pave the way for the cancellation of the elections.
However, the former federal appellate court judge far more than tore down the legal arguments Trump had delved into. His statement was a clear and up-to-date threat document describing the tense state of American democracy, the internal war and the role of Trump and his followers in bringing us to this point.
NY Times:
Gun Talks sticks to a difficult question: who is considered a friend?
One of the contentious issues that hinders the final agreement on gun legislation is how to define a guy in a provision designed to protect guns from domestic abusers.
Current legislation prohibits the purchase of a weapon by persons convicted of domestic violence or prohibited from domestic violence, but only if they have been married or living with the victim or have a child. For years, lawmakers have worked unsuccessfully to address what has become known as the “guy’s loophole,” extending the law to other intimate partners. Taking such a step is considered one of the more publicly popular and effective ways to reduce arms violence.
ProPublica:
White parents gathered to drive the black teacher out of town. They then followed her until the next.
[Cecilia] Lewis began preparing to move south, spending as much time as possible with friends and family when she received a strange call from an official in her new school district. The interlocutor, Lewis, will not say who asked if he had ever heard of CRT.
Lewis replied, “Yes, a culture-responsive teaching.” She thought of a philosophy that linked the child’s cultural origins to what they were learning at school. For Lewis, who studied Japanese and Russian in college and recently went to Ghana with Fulbright-Hays seminary teachers, language and culture were essential to understanding everyone’s experience.
At the time, she was not even familiar with another CRT, a critical racial theory that claims that racial prejudice is embedded in American laws and institutions and has caused disproportionate harm to people of color. In his speech last fall, then-President Donald Trump condemned the CRT as “toxic propaganda” and ideological poison.
Gregs Sargents / WaPo:
The shocking revelations of Trump raise concerns about a dark, violent future
At the end of the selected committee meeting on Thursday, January 6, J. Michael Lutig, a former federal judge widely respected by the Conservatives, issued a long-term warning. Trump and his allies pose a “clear and immediate threat to American democracy,” Lutig said said and pledges to “succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020”.
“The former president and his allies,” Lutig continued, “are fulfilling this plan for 2024 with an open and clear view of American society.”
This might seem like a narrow procedural prediction: if 2024 is very close, they will try the same manipulation of our squeaky election college system as they did last time. They could succeed. They are putting these pieces in place right now.
All this is true. But Luttiga’s testimony, along with shocking new discoveries, points to something more important that is at stake. These hearings are about what a long-term democratic future holds: they reflect efforts to reduce the chances of us slipping our heads in an age of chronic instability and growing political violence.
LA times:
MAGA is fighting around the world to draw conclusions that the 2020 elections have been stolen
Since the violent attempt to stop confirming the results of the 2020 elections on January 6, 2021, much of the test has been taught about what Trump knew and the involvement of those closest to him, including his chief of staff, Mark. Meadows. But just dozens of true believers gathered in hotels in Washington and South Carolina plantations gathered information on which the Trump campaign based its unsubstantiated allegations that the election was stolen, and the information was also used to entice state and federal lawmakers to help attempt to overturn the election. .
Jamelle Bouie / NY Times:
Ginny Thomas has a lot to explain
Imagine what would have happened if Barack Obama had planned to destroy and overthrow the presidential election, which he had lost.
Republicans would have lost their minds. By whipping themselves into fake scandals and causing controversy during the actual Obama administration, they would have grown into partisan anger at paroxysm for any of these deeds. The hearings in Benghazi would have looked like a reasonable investigation compared to what Republicans would have discovered if the shoe had been on its other foot.
NY Times:
In the revelations of January 6, the election lie is still dominated by the GOP
The hearings have shattered the myth of the stolen presidential election, but as the pre-election season of 2022 is fully balanced, the revelations have not eased the grip on the Republicans..
The first three hearings of the House of Representatives Committee on January 6 have severely shattered the post-election myths repeatedly repeated by former President Donald Trump and his supporters and endorsed and reinforced by Congressional Republicans.
The Republican witness parade – his Attorney General William P. Bars, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his own campaign lawyers – knew he had lost the election, and he told him. Mr Trump was informed that his demands to Mr Pensa to unilaterally block his defeat were illegal. Even the most active organizer of the coup, the conservative lawyer John K. Eastman, acknowledged before January 6 that his scheme was illegal and unconstitutional, and then asked for the president’s pardon after it caused mob violence.
However, the most striking revelation so far may be how deeply Mr Trump’s disregard for truth and the rule of law has permeated the Republican Party, rooted in the fertile soil of the right-wing electorate, which is teeming with conspiracy theories and is well nurtured. their chosen media. The Republican response to the hearing – a combination of indifference, diversion and doubling – reflects the importance of the stolen election as essential to the party’s identity.
Jonathan Weiler / Substack:
Understanding of trumpeting
The tramp clown attack, his constant shouting, his passion for playing the worst instincts of an increasingly busy and bloodthirsty crowd, the way he enjoyed playing “heels” – all mimicked the world that wrestler Win McMahon had. a major promoter turned into marketing gold.
In doing so, Trump rejected the basic element of the old GOP. Returning to Gerstl’s first point, Trump made no sense of pro-trade principles that the Republican elites, no matter how selective, had long followed. In rejecting these ideas, Trump had little patience with traditional conservative moralizing. Given this senior conservatism, one of the most important reasons for reducing the role of government was to reduce “dependence.” By getting rid of such shackles, individuals should develop a sense of initiative, care and determination, which are essential elements of a virtuous society. Tramps, on the other hand, said, “Gerstl said,” this moralization of the GOP was considered boring and unrelated to the real world.[Trump] he was more interested in excitement and strength than honesty and discipline. Trump supported the lifting of restrictions, but not because he considered free markets to be favorable institutions capable of inculcating [in participants] ethical behavior. “Instead, Trampam’s markets were” designed for manipulation, contracts were broken. “
All of the above provides a guide to understanding Trumpism in general and determining his motives and behavior, as he insisted on a coup on his behalf. Some have wondered if Trump “knew” what he was saying was wrong, or if he had been deceived into believing that the election had been robbed. But all this means, first of all, that Tramp has a normal mind and a set of life experiences that ordinary people might even be involved with.