January 6

"The whole thing is fucked.” That’s how one former blue-state GOP official describes the current turmoil facing state Republican parties. Numerous reports have laid bare the financial struggles, leadership turnover and abject chaos that have ensnared the GOP’s state parties. State parties in Arizona and Pennsylvania, unable to make rent, have sold off their headquarters. There are active battles for control of the party in Michigan and Colorado. Arizona also recently pushed out its chairman and in Georgia the party chair stepped down. Meanwhile, multiple former state-party officials are under indictment in cases related to January 6.

To call Jack Smith an aggressive prosecutor is an understatement. Smith’s crusade against former president Donald Trump has been nothing less than scorched earth, with a shamelessly transparent goal of doing all he can to stop Trump’s re-election in November. By dismissing Smith’s classified documents prosecution in Florida, District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling has not so much clipped Smith’s wings as it has tossed him from the nest altogether. And her decision throws both prosecutions into a tailspin from which they may never recover. For two years Attorney General Merrick Garland has been insisting that Smith is operating with complete freedom and discretion, walled off from Justice Department oversight and political pressure from the White House.

It has not escaped the attention of media observers that the current outbreak of violent campus demonstrations is but the latest in a series of disruptive left-wing movements, starting with Occupy Wall Street in 2012, followed by the Black Lives Matter riots over the summer of 2020 and now the anti-Israel protests. The right, too, has been associated with disorderly conduct — most notably during January 6 and the Charlottesville rallies — but neither of these events were as well-planned or long lasting as what progressives have been up to. And this fact has led many journalists to speculate as to why the American left has become so attached to civil disobedience.

We live now in an age of reverse gaslighting. Ordinary gaslighting — the term was popularized by the 1944 movie Gaslight — describes a process of psychological manipulation whose goal is to make ordinary people question their sanity. Reverse gaslighting, by contrast, aims to convince us that insane realities are perfectly normal. Imagine: practically the entire population quarantines itself because a couple of government bureaucrats tell them to. Everyone starts wearing little paper masks as patents of their capitulation and, secondarily, as badges of their virtue.

According to President Biden, not since the Civil War has American freedom and democracy been so under assault. In his State of the Union address, Biden characterized January 6 as a day when “insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” With this kind of rhetoric emanating from the White House, it is no wonder a good portion of the country believes that any use of the legal system is justified to protect us from a second Donald Trump administration.  Except... that is not how the law works. By stretching their prosecutorial powers to the breaking point, Democrats are perverting the very system they are claiming to protect.  Take the charade in New York.

Attacking special counsels is fine now, apparently. At least, that’s according to the “Forrest Gump of political failure,” Ian Sams.Former special counsel Robert Hur testified to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that his report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, contrary to claims from the White House and Democrats — did not “exonerate” or “clear” Biden — and that there was evidence he willfully retained classified documents, that he shared them with others and that his ghostwriter obstructed the investigation. Sams, however, who is the White House’s spokesman on investigative matters, told CNN that Hur was “misleading” in his testimony.

Congressional Democrats have finally admitted why they are so scared of Donald Trump — they think he’s out to kill them. January 6 was just a preview to a possible round of sweeping political assassinations. “Donald Trump and his lawyers essentially asserted that the president has the right to assassinate people, to kill people without any prospect of prosecution unless they’re first impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate,” Representative Jamie Raskin said on CNN last Tuesday after Trump's DC circuit Court of Appeals appearance. Raskin was referring to an argument made by Trump’s lawyer John Sauer that the former president is immune to criminal persecution for official acts taken while in office.

I have important news for everyone: there is not going to be a second American Civil War. That may be hard for some people to grasp, as they seem almost fully committed to the idea that Civil War 2 is a pre-produced done deal just waiting for a wide release. But, as honorary American Gordon Ramsay might say, let me make one thing clear, young lady. The Second Civil War is a fear-based fantasy, mostly based on media-bubble abstractions. And our fantasy-making apparatus is in the midst of exploiting that fear. Exhibit one is Alex Garland’s upcoming A24 movie, subtly titled Civil War, starring Kirsten Dunst as a blue state-looking photojournalist who is chronicling the drama as President Ron Swanson sends fighter jets to attack what used to be his citizens. https://twitter.

Mike Pence was never likely to win the Republican nomination for president, and today he recognized the inevitable. He withdrew from the race. Now is not the time to focus on why his candidacy never gained traction. It is the time to remember his great contribution to our nation on January 6, 2021. On that fateful day, Pence did the right thing, despite enormous pressure from Donald Trump and a rioting mob to do the wrong one. He resisted that pressure at great risk to his political future and personal safety. He deserves our praise and gratitude. On January 6, Pence was presiding over the Senate as the electoral votes for president were counted. The duty was a limited, constitutional role assigned to the vice president.

An officer from the Montgomery County Police Department was arrested Thursday after being indicted for his actions at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, which include assaulting police officers, according to an indictment. Twenty-five-year-old Justin Lee of Rockville, Maryland is the subject of a seven-count indictment, according to a press release from the Department of Justice, which include "felony offenses of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers.

Merrick Garland’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday was a spectacular, if depressing, confirmation of something any sentient observer had noticed long ago: that the Department of Justice, and its head, Attorney General Garland, are horribly, egregiously compromised.  The outcome or upshot? That Garland should be impeached and removed from office and the DOJ itself should be put into the political equivalent of Chapter 11 so that its management can be replaced and its activities reorganized. As I say, this has long been obvious to any sentient observer. But Wednesday’s testimony put meat on the bones of this impending repudiation. Several Republicans put hard questions to the attorney general.