Control of the United States Senate will be one of the biggest political prizes fought over in the 2022 midterm elections this November. So far, out of all the 2022 Senate races, Democrats look fairly well positioned to either hold onto their thin majority or perhaps even expand it by one or two. In what is supposed to be a very Republican-friendly year, the GOP's chances of taking the Senate seem dimmer than ever. This is due to one very big reason: personality matters. The quality of the candidates matter.

Read Complete Article »

There is a nationwide audience for the revelations that keeping coming forth from the House Select Committee on January 6th, but the most important audience these hearings really have is Attorney General Merrick Garland (and all the people in the Department of Justice who have also been investigating the insurrection attempt). What will Garland do when the hearings conclude and (a few months later) when the committee's final report is publicly issued?

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump, when he was president, was mocked in many ways. The most amusing of all, though, was the giant balloon someone created of Trump caricatured as a baby, in diapers, clutching a cell phone in one of his tiny hands.

Today's hearing in front of the House Select Committee on January 6th proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what most observant people had already realized: Donald Trump was indeed nothing but a big baby. He is a man-child whose mental age seems stuck somewhere between two years old and perhaps five. He throws tantrums. He throws his own food. He cares about nothing but satisfying his own warped urges. His biggest concern on January 6th was that the crowd size of his rally looked impressive on television. He continually harps on this, speaking just this week about his crowd that day as (of course) the biggest, hugest crowd ever to assemble. It's all about Donald Trump's ego, and it always has been.

Read Complete Article »

Today saw the final June hearing of the House Select Committee on January 6th. Next week, Congress scarpers off on one of their many two-week holiday breaks, ostensibly for the July 4th holiday, so we won't be getting another of these hearings until the week of July 11th, at the earliest. But the committee does indeed plan to hold more public hearings, although they continue to hold their cards very close to the vest on exactly how many such hearings will take place, as well as the subject of any of the upcoming hearings. Perhaps this is done to build tension and interest among the public, or perhaps it is just because they are now reportedly being flooded with new information and new testimony, all offered up since the beginning of the public hearings earlier this month.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump's Big Lie wasn't just a political ploy. Parts of it were criminal, because people (including Trump himself) didn't just theorize or promote the falsehood that the election had been somehow "stolen" from Trump, they acted on it. And -- the violence of January 6th aside -- some of those actions were indeed criminal. The most obvious was the fact that in seven states groups of Republicans took it upon themselves to proclaim themselves the rightful slate of electors to the Electoral College, and they tried to foist this fraudulent proclamation upon the rest of the country. That is election fraud, and every single participant in this scheme should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law -- if only to deter others from doing anything like it in the future.

Read Complete Article »

Today was the fourth in the series of June hearings televised by the House Select Committee, and it turned out to be one of the most effective yet. The emotional tension in the room started somber but built into outrage and fear at the end. The subject at hand today was Donald Trump and his henchmen attempting to interfere in the election process at the state level, the illegal scheme to create out of whole cloth fake slates of electors, and the impact all of this had upon the people who stood firmly for the United States Constitution and the rule of law.

Read Complete Article »

In the past, whenever I have used that title phrase, it has always been tongue-in-cheek -- as a hyperbolic metaphor, in other words. Other close cousins to it would be: "A GOP circular firing squad," or "Republicans eating their own." Neither of those was ever meant literally either, obviously. They were all merely used to dramatize intraparty GOP power struggles, or one Republican getting ostracized or worse by his or her own fellow party members. Such as Madison Cawthorn getting successfully primaried, or what the party has done and is doing (both in the House of Representatives and back home in Wyoming) to Liz Cheney.

Read Complete Article »

We do realize that last week we semi-committed to publishing regular Friday Talking Points columns if there weren't any previous primetime Thursday-night hearings to cover from the House Select Committee on January 6th. However, there was one thing that came out of yesterday's hearing that is not getting nearly enough media or public attention, and we feel obligated to try to change this -- mostly because it is so important.

Read Complete Article »

There were only two witnesses for the entire time today, Judge Luttig and Greg Jacob, who was Vice President Mike Pence's chief legal counsel at the time. This position allowed Jacob to either be present for or at the heart of all the discussions being held between the vice president, the president, and all the crackpot lawyers who were attempting to convince Pence to either break or just ignore the Constitution and the relevant law which outlines the process of electing a president (the "Electoral Count Act of 1887").

Read Complete Article »

While I listen to and read all the pundits' reactions to the hearings the House select committee is televising, what amazes me is how few of them seem to realize what the actual point of these hearings and of the investigation itself truly is (or should be, at any rate). Many see it and interpret it all through a political lens: "What do the Democrats want to accomplish by all of this? Will it all help or hurt Democrats or Republicans in the midterms? Are the hearings changing anyone's mind?" But these questions all really miss the focal point of it all. Because the end goal is not actually a political one. The end goal should be to prevent it from ever happening again, period.

Read Complete Article »