W. Niederhut

And let's not forget that Michael Flynn's brother, General Charles Flynn, blatantly lied about his role in delaying the deployment of National Guard troops to the Capitol on January 6th.

Ben, A number of us have explained to you, repeatedly during the past year, that the Capitol Police were too overwhelmed by the violent, bear-spraying mob to arrest or search the rioters for weapons on January 6th. What is it about our repeated explanations of that basic fact that you still don't understand? Most of what we learned about guns at the Capitol only came to light in the subsequent investigations of the rioters. The police reports of Glocks and AR-15s were shared with Trump and Meadows on the morning of January 6th. It's news to us today, but it isn't news to Trump, Meadows, Hutchinson, and the security people in the loop on J6. If you had watched the hearing today, you would know that Trump acknowledged that his mob had guns, but he said that he didn't care, because "they weren't there to attack him." You've been dead wrong about the guns and the details of the coup attempt for the past 18 months. Man up and admit it, instead of cluttering the board with repeated denials.

Kirk, That was the most shocking revelation, IMO, from today's testimony-- that Trump and Meadows were briefed at 10:00 AM on January 6th about the fact that the MAGA mob was armed with Glocks and AR-15s !! So much for Ben's oft-repeated claim that the Capitol attackers weren't armed... 🤥 Trump wasn't merely inciting a riot. He was inciting potential homicides. Is there a statutory definition for that crime?

Geez... It's not just about Trump's historic sedition, Ben. It's about numerous Republican officials, including members of Congress and state legislatures, (and the media) who were accomplices in Trump's crimes, and in his ongoing cover up. The Trumplican Party is rotten to the core. And, sadly, the few Republicans who refused to participate in his sedition and coverup have been ostracized and threatened by the Trumplican Crime Party. You, yourself, have repeatedly attacked Liz Cheney for her involvement in the investigation of Trump's serious crimes. I'd ask you some questions, as a rebuttal, but you ducked the last questions I asked you, (yesterday) and promptly changed the subject of our debate about J6.

And, in fact, Trump's flying monkey, Christopher Wray, is still in charge of the FBI. Talk about yer Deep State conspiracy to get Trump... 🤥 Meanwhile, someone over at the Democratic Underground thinks the mystery witness is Jeffrey Clark's (and Eastman's) associate Ken Klukowski. Here's a recent WaPo excerpt on Klukowski,* (re-printed for non-subscribers.) Jan. 6 committee connects two strands of Trump’s effort to retain power www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/23/jan-6-committee-connects-two-strands-trumps-effort-retain-power/ June 23, 2022 *...Shortly before the committee went into a brief recess on Thursday, Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) revealed that connection. “The committee has also learned that Mr. Clark was working with another attorney at the department named Ken Klukowski, who drafted this letter to Georgia with Mr. Clark,” Cheney said. Klukowski, she said, had started work at the department Dec. 15, just over a month before Trump’s administration would end. There, Klukowski was assigned to work under Clark. But “Mr. Klukowski also worked with John Eastman,” Cheney said, describing the attorney as “one of the primary architects of President Trump’s scheme to overturn the election.” Cheney pointed to elements of the letter to Georgia that echoed Eastman’s plan for state legislators. To wit: “[T]he Department recommends that the Georgia General Assembly should convene in special session so that its legislators are in a position to take additional testimony, receive new evidence, and deliberate on the matter consistent with its duties under the U.S. Constitution. Time is of the essence, as the U.S. Constitution tasks Congress with convening in joint session to count Electoral College certificates … on January 6, 2021, with the Vice President presiding over the session as President of the Senate.” The letter continued, pointing to the alternate sets of electors “in Georgia and several other States.” It made three recommendations: evaluate the purported (and unfounded) irregularities, determine if those might change the election results and then “take whatever action is necessary to ensure that one of the slates of Electors cast on December 14 will be accepted by Congress on January 6.” That is: to potentially sign off on the Trump slate. Cheney also presented an email sent after Klukowski had joined the Justice Department by Trump ally Ken Cuccinelli, at the time acting deputy secretary of homeland security. It suggested Eastman and Klukowski brief Vice President Mike Pence on the plan to upend the election results. In the message, there’s even a reference to the sensitivity of including Klukowski, given his new position at the department. “This email suggests that Mr. Klukowski was simultaneously working with Jeffrey Clark to draft the proposed letter to Georgia officials to overturn their certified election,” Cheney concluded, “and working with Dr. Eastman to help pressure the vice president to overturn the election.” In other words, Klukowski appears to draw two different parts of Trump’s effort to retain power — overhaul the Justice Department to focus on claims of fraud and get legislatures to sign off on alternate slates of electors — into one unified plot. It wasn’t just Clark hoping to publicly elevate the idea that something sketchy happened in Georgia. It may, instead, have been that Clark’s letter was an attempt to use the Justice Department to force Georgia’s legislature into enacting Eastman’s scheme.

I must confess that I experienced a similar dissonant vibe, Maestro Brancato.

The investigation of Trump's historic crimes is far more than a mere "drama," Ben. But how would you know? Did you ever finally get around to watching the Congressional J6 hearings about Trump's false elector scam, his pressure campaign to induce the DOJ to help overturn the 2020 election, and his involvement in promoting the violent J6 attack on the Vice President and U.S. Congress? What did you think of Rusty Bowers damning testimony? How about Brad Raffensperger's? Like many closeted Trumplicans, you appear to be sleepwalking through history, while trying to change the subject.

Any guesses about who the surprise witness will be? Al Franken just Tweeted that the witness's identity has been kept secret for security reasons. Could it be White House counsel Pat Cipollone? I wonder if Cipollone will be the John Dean of Trump's J6 coup plot.

Exactly. The slave owning Southern colonies/states had well-armed slave patrols/militias, and slave owning Founding Fathers (e.g., Washington, Jefferson, Madison, et.al.) wanted to protect the right of well-regulated state slave patrol/militias to bear arms. Five of America's first seven Presidents owned slaves (all except for John Adams and his son.) These "well-regulated" Southern slave patrol/militias became even more prominent after Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia. In fact, Robert E. Lee led Virginia's slave patrol/militia to Harper's Ferry to promptly suppress John Brown's slave rebellion in 1859. The existence of "well-regulated" Southern slave patrol/militias was one important reason why the Union volunteer armies fared so poorly against the Confederacy in the first few years of the American Civil War.

Jack White Blasts Trump for “All the Abortions You Secretly Paid For” After Roe v. Wade Overturned https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jack-white-blasts-trump-abortions-182957879.html

Alito detailed long-term plan to overturn Roe v Wade in 1985 memowww.rawstory.com/samuel-alito/ June 26, 2022According to a report from the New York Times’ Charlie Savage, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been making plans to overturn the 50-year-old Roe v Wade ruling based upon a memo that he wrote in 1985 where he counseled patience during the Ronald Reagan administration. Alito, who wrote Friday’s decision that overturned Row — and subsequently set off mass demonstrations across the country by effectively turning women into second-class citizens — reportedly “cautioned the Reagan administration against mounting a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade.”In his 1985 memo Alito, “advocated focusing on a more incremental argument: The court should uphold the regulations as reasonable. That strategy would ‘advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its effects,” reports the Times Savage.“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences, he wrote. “And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”According to the Times report, “In a memo on the cases, Mr. Alito displayed not only tactical acumen but personal passion, taking umbrage with a judge’s objection that forcing women to listen to details about fetal development before their abortions would cause ‘emotional distress, anxiety, guilt and in some cases increased physical pain,” with Alito dismissing their concerns by writing the such concerns “are part of the responsibility of moral choice.”The Times reports that during Senate hearings on his appointment to the highest court in the land, when the 1985 memo was brought up, he responded, “When someone becomes a judge, you really have to put aside the things that you did as a lawyer at prior points in your legal career and think about legal issues the way a judge thinks about legal issues.”

"The Donks don't have anything to do for the middle class," Ben? What planet are you living on? Which party has been cutting taxes for the wealthy, and undermining the unions that created the American middle class, for the past 40 years? But, more importantly, the main significance of this catastrophic SCOTUS Dobbs ruling isn't about mere partisan political expediency. You and Trump seem to be cynically focused on how this ruling will impact voting. The real significance is that this ruling undermines individual rights, and subjects individuals living in conservative red states to the tyranny of the majority. (It's formally similar to the 5-4 SCOTUS ruling in Shelby v. Holder-- undermining enforcement of the Voting Rights Act in red states.) What's next-- allowing red state legislatures to ban contraceptives and same sex marriages?

Ben, Have you read the Mueller Report? Are you aware that Trump, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone stonewalled Mueller's investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's contacts with Kremlin assets-- even committing perjury, after plea bargaining? That Trump floated pardons to Flynn, Manafort, Gates, and Stone during the investigation -- engaging in witness tampering and obstruction of justice? Are you aware that Mueller never subpoenaed Donald Trump or his family members during his investigation? 9/11 and Mueller's partial investigation of Russiagate are two separate, historic events. I have no doubt that Mueller has been deeply involved in the U.S. military-industrial complex, (including the Bush/Cheney "War on Terror") going back to his active military service in Vietnam after graduating from Princeton. But, in the case of Rod Rosenstein and the Russiagate investigation, my impression is that Robert Mueller, more or less, helped Bill Barr land the Republican plane. If you disagree, explain why Mueller never subpoenaed Donald Trump or indicted him for the multiple counts of obstruction of justice detailed in the Mueller Report.

Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman explains, briefly, why the Dobbs ruling is a catastrophe. Trumplicans need to tune out the right wing propagandist, Jonathan Turley, and study Feldman. Abortion Ruling Is Suicidal for the Supreme Courtnews.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/abortion-ruling-is-suicidal-for-the-supreme-court-noah-feldman

I wonder if anyone believes that Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett would have been confirmed by the Senate if they had told the truth about their intentions to overturn Roe v. Wade. This Republican SCOTUS scam was decades in the making.

Ben, I'm relieved to see that you are finally studying some of the 9/11 Truth research literature. Better late than never. Your summary of David Ray Griffin's 9/11 analysis is on target. Conversely, your harebrained attempt to use Robert Mueller's (and Liz Cheney's) involvement with the Bush/Cheney/PNAC administration as evidence that Trump's involvement with the Kremlin, and Trump's January 6th coup plot, were Deep State fabrications is ludicrous. It's a fallacy of overgeneralization-- erroneous extrapolation from the facts. Nice try, but no cigar. Trump's Russiagate scandal was no hoax, and his January 6th coup plot was no mere "scrum," as you have endlessly claimed. Nor did you ever read the Mueller Report. For obvious reasons, many informed people in both political parties were deeply concerned by the prospect of an uneducated, inept, unscrupulous con man like Donald Trump ascending to the Presidency. To theorize that those rational concerns are evidence of a "Deep State" plot against Trump is nonsense. Trump and his PR people-- including Steve Bannon and Fox News-- "discovered" the Deep State in an attempt to deflect blame from the Trump campaign's involvement with the Kremlin in 2016. And, as Cliff Varnell, Kirk Galloway and I have pointed out, repeatedly, there was no Deep State/M$M sabotage of Trump's ascension to the Presidency in 2016. The exact opposite was the case. Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy was sabotaged by the M$M-- with weekly M$M headlines about her Email nothing burger during the weeks prior to the election. She was also sabotaged by James Comey and Rudy Giuliani's FBI-linked, Weiner laptop October Surprise. Simultaneously, the NYT and M$M suppressed pre-election stories about Trump's longstanding enmeshment with the Russian mafia and Putin's oligarchs.

Colbert reviews the evidence that Trump's mule, RoJo, is possibly the dumbest Senator in U.S. history.

RoJo Implicated in Trump's Fake Elector Scam Sen. Ron Johnson under fire over fake-electors disclosure at hearing (msn.com) June 23, 2022

I thought Arizona's Republican House Speaker Rusty Bower's testimony about Trump and Giuliani's false elector scam was especially damning. (Raffensperger's expose of the Trump/Giuliani scam in Georgia was already well documented by 60 Minutes.) Adam Schiff's closing statement belongs in the history books. The case against Trump can't be stated more precisely and eloquently. Unfortunately, the people who really need to hear it aren't listening.

Nonsense. You're a guy who pushed Tucker Carlson's false "patriot purge" narrative about January 6th for weeks on this forum, while ignoring all of the contrary evidence people posted for you. And you have repeatedly dismissed Trump's January 6th mob attack on the Congress as a mere "scrum." You have also endlessly repeated Trump's bogus claim that his Russia-gate scandal was a "hoax," without even bothering to study the Mueller Report or the contrary evidence debunking your claim. More recently, you have posted right wing nonsense claiming that Bill Barr's Durham investigation proved that Russia-gate was a hoax.

Ben, My "partisan politics?" From the orange kool-aid swilling "patriot purger" guy whose erroneous concepts of American politics include the bizarre, fixed belief that the so-called "Donks" are no different than the "Phants?" As for Barr and Mueller, I was the guy who explained to you recently that Bill Barr and Robert Mueller are old friends, remember? Meanwhile, if you can't even discern the profound difference between a corrupt GOP apparatchik like Bill Barr and Attorney General Merrick Garland, it's a waste of time conversing with you about history and current events. As AG for GHWB and Trump, Bill Barr functioned, essentially, as a corrupt, partisan fixer. He orchestrated the Iran-Contra pardons for GHWB, and he suppressed and lied about Robert Mueller's investigation of Russiagate, for Trump.

Geez... "Donk apparatchik?" Get a clue, for once, Ben. As usual, you have no idea what you're talking about. Merrick Garland graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, before graduating from Harvard Law School. He's a highly principled, ethical jurist who has gone out of his way to avoid politicizing the DOJ-- unlike his corrupt predecessor, Bill Barr, who essentially functioned as Trump's personal lawyer as AG. You're confusing Garland with the corrupt, partisan, Federalist Society apparatchiks appointed by the Koch elephants.