Another Monday in a new year with a lot of hold-over shit still bubbling along, especially with the Jan. 6 insurrection/riot at the US Capitol three years ago a forefront news item that will most likely impact this upcoming election year.
If you didn’t know T-Rump was a cruel, shitface asshole, now’s the time.
Especially with new elements popping up:
Then-President Donald Trump did not care when he was told that Vice President Mike Pence had been rushed to a secure location as the Capitol riot escalated, a new report says.
Former Trump aide Nick Luna told special counsel Jack Smith’s team that when Trump was informed about Pence’s situation, he responded: “So what?”
Pence and his staff were taken to a secure location on January 6, 2021, as rioters entered the Capitol, with some in the mob outside chanting to “hang Mike Pence.”
Beyond the horror of watching the actual event unfold in real-time with some earth-shattering video (only to be revealed within hours how worse the actual circumstance was in reality), the shit is that even 36 months later, Republicans led by the horrifying, piece-of-shit criminal T-Rump, have twisted a coup into a ‘hostage’ situation — the mainstream media is caught in a cross-fire of moral truth.
Lying in the verified face of truth and the fate of American democracy may hang in the balance:
Trump and his party tried to steal the 2020 election. Now they’ve stolen TRUTH itself.
Fact-based news outlets better figure out how to get the genie back in the bottle. Pronto. @MollyJongFast https://t.co/73jmFU2XTm— David Friend (@DavidMFriend1) January 8, 2024
Molly Jong-Fast with a straight-up look at twisting reality at Vanity Fair this afternoon:
I had to read this headline last week from the Associated Press several times because I was sure I’d had it wrong: “One attack, two interpretations: Biden and Trump both make the Jan. 6 riot a political rallying cry.” Later in the piece appeared the line: Biden has “repeatedly characterized Trump as a threat to democracy.” Biden had characterized Trump that way? Well, there’s a reason for that! It’s because Trump is a threat to democracy. Meanwhile, The New York Times offered this headline: “Trump Responds to Biden’s Speech Calling Him a Threat to Democracy,” which was apparently changed—though not for the better—to “Trump Accuses Biden of ‘Fearmongering’ After Speech About Democracy.” And perhaps the most offensive headline both-sidesing reality was from USA Today: “Biden and Trump’s split over Jan. 6 is as divisive as it is for voters.”
The facts of January 6 and its aftermath should be clear to any journalist who simply watched the events that day—and especially if they watched the damning House committee hearings or followed the exhaustive reporting since. It’s not Biden’s opinion that Trump is a threat. It’s not my opinion. It’s a fact. The guy who told Sean Hannity he wanted to be a “dictator” for his first day in office is, in fact, a threat to democracy. Liz Cheney warned that electing Trump again would be “sleepwalking into dictatorship,” and Chris Christie said that Trump “acts like someone who wants to be a dictator” because he “doesn’t care about our democracy,” adding: “He acts like someone who wants to be a dictator. He acts like someone who doesn’t care for the Constitution.”
[…]
In Iowa on Saturday, Trump said that the rioters acted “patriotically and peacefully” on January 6, and those in jail are “hostages.” He added, “They ought to release the J6 hostages. They’ve suffered.” I’m no criminal lawyer, but isn’t going to prison for crimes generally how all this works? Describing such people as “hostages” is the latest example of Trump pushing a version of events divorced from reality—one that some in his party were quick to promote. Like clockwork, Republican congresswoman (and veep contender) Elise Stefanik told NBC’s Kristen Welker, “I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages.”
Every time elected Republicans repeat a Trump lie, the schism between reality and Trumpian reality grows. By endorsing Trump’s unreality, Republicans are effectively endorsing Trump’s autocratic nature in which everything he says is to be believed, no matter how baseless or just plain bonkers. But of all Trump’s many lies, his bogus claims about the 2020 election and the events of January 6 are the most dangerous for the future of democracy.
The current president, meanwhile, remains clear-eyed about this tragic day.
“We saw with our own eyes the violent mob storm the United States Capitol,” Biden said in a Friday speech pegged to the three-year anniversary. “It was almost in disbelief as you first turned on the television. For the first time in our history, insurrectionists had come to stop the peaceful transfer, transfer of power, in America. First time. Smashing windows, shattering doors, attacking the police. Outside, gallows were erected as the MAGA crowd chanted, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ Inside, they hunted for Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi. The House was chanting as they marched through and smashed windows, ‘Where’s Nancy?’ Over 140 police officers were injured.”
This isn’t Biden’s opinion, or his side. It’s what happened.
Shit is so bad in the smoke in the mirror, ‘alternative facts’ are just extended lies: ‘Twenty-five percent of Americans say it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the FBI instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a false concept promoted by right-wing media and repeatedly denied by federal law enforcement, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.‘
In the end, a life taker:
An approaching end to democracy, or not, yet once again here we are…
(Creepy, vile, and dangerous image out front found here.)