A big part of the practice of writing is sitting down to think something through.  You write, then you read what you wrote, then you think, then you rewrite, then you read it all again.  Why are you writing?  For me it’s to understand and make my thoughts and feelings as clear as possible, to myself and to the reader. 

We know what we are trying to say, most of the time, but the beauty of writing is that it allows us to keep rewriting, refining, fixing flaws in our presentation, focusing our intentions as sharply as possible, so that others can hopefully grasp them in all their nuance.   The writer needs to give the reader enough background for meaning and context, while keeping in mind that background can swallow everything if too detailed.

Yesterday I posted an excerpt of a piece by Jennifer Rubin in which she quoted a governor named Hutchinson giving an ostensibly  thoughtful answer in support of the Supreme Court forcing women and girls in his state to give birth to their rapists’ babies.  Moments later another Hutchinson, a young woman named Cassidy, assistant to Trump’s final Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, gave live testimony at an emergency hearing before the J6 Select Committee.   Today the nation is abuzz over her two hours under oath.  I found her testimony electrifying. 

She testified that Trump, Meadows, Stone (pardoned felon), Giuliani, Flynn (pardoned felon) and others planned the march to the Capitol on January 6th.  Stone and Giuliani appear to have been the point men with the white supremacist militias involved in the siege of the Capitol.  Meadows told his assistant a few days beforehand that things could get really bad on January 6th.  Several of these Trump loyalists, Flynn, Giuliani (Bannon — pardoned before conviction for felony, Eastman, Kerik— pardoned felon) established a command center, or war room, in a hotel near the White House.  Meadows wanted to go to the war room on January 5th, asked his young assistant to order a car for him, but she urged him not to go.  He phoned in instead.  

Trump became angry on January 6th that his crowd was being frisked and put through magnetometers (“mags”) because many were heavily armed.   He is famously obsessed with crowd size and insisted the mags be removed so his followers could fill the Ellipse, for the cameras, and march on the Capitol from there.  He didn’t care that they were armed, he was certain they intended him no harm.

We know his supporters had not obtained a permit to march to the Capitol on January 6th.  Now we also know that the march was planned anyway.  An illegal march, with insufficient police presence, to stage a show of force to “stiffen the spines” of men like Mike Pence.  Good luck stiffening that guy’s spine, by the way.  The illegal march to “Stop the Steal” culminated in a deadly riot.  But why keep dwelling on it?

A small number of Trump’s defenders showed up today, two loyal Secret Service men in particular, to cast doubt on Cassidy Hutchinson’s account of a few moments of that stressful day.  They claim they want to testify under oath to dispute Ms. Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s temper tantrum when his driver would not drive him to the Capitol to lead the armed protest there.   Ms. Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato (promoted by Trump from lead agent to Deputy Chief of Staff) told her (with his Secret Service colleague Engel, the other agent involved, present), that Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel of his armored limo and lunged to grab Engel by the throat when he refused to yield to the president’s command to drive to the Capitol. Engel will presumably testify that this claim about the admittedly enraged Trump grabbing him is bullshit.  

In law there’s an old maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (“false in one thing, false in everything). Presumably if the Secret Service men swear under oath that what she said is not what they told her (sworn “he said, she said” — a draw), and certainly not what happened, they have established, to some, that she is a liar whose entire testimony should be seen in that light. 

There is no law against a president, or anyone else, angrily throwing his lunch against the wall, as Hutchinson reported Trump did after Bill Barr betrayed him by telling AP the truth about the absence of widespread voter fraud.  Even if he did throw it, there are probably witnesses willing to testify that no ketchup dripped down the wall, and even if it did, so what?     

If warnings were given to witnesses to remain loyal, or have bad things happen, like what happened to former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yavonovich, Colonel Alexander Vindman, Michael Cohen, so what?  Loyalty is a good thing and it would be a shame if anything happened to a disloyal person who was confronted by a group of righteously angry people with guns or a noose, if you catch my drift.

The “slippery” question of Trump’s intent is not very slippery in light of his consistent behavior, and the evidence presented so far in the January 6th Select Committee hearings.  He has obstructed justice since he was a young man, suckling at the hideous tit of the evil Roy Cohn, who begat ratfucker Roger Stone.  He was not exonerated by Mueller for at least ten specific instances of obstruction of justice related to shutting down or obstructing the Mueller “witch hunt”.

Trump cannot lose, will not tolerate it, each of his bankruptcies were actually genius uses of the legal system to keep his untold billions. Every loss in court, a strategic victory. He surrounds himself with people ready to do whatever is necessary to protect the Big Baby.

As we wait for the next explosive revelations from the J6 investigation, the Congressman and others who asked Trump for pardons after January 6th have been mostly quiet about that.  After all, the real story is a planned COMMIE takeover of the US and the godless attempt to rob from the rich to feed the unworthy poor!  Biden inflation, Biden mental unfitness, Biden lies, Biden weakness!

There are two sides, at least, to most stories, but the side that claims an armed riot to stop the ceremonial finalization of Trump’s election loss is perfectly legal and fine, and nothing to see, has a much weaker story, one they’d rather avoid going into.  Instead they stick to praising a radicalized Supreme Court and gearing up for a sprint in the last leg of a marathon toward American fascism. 

When retired three star general, convicted perjurer, QAnon and martial law promoter Mike “Lock Her UP!” Flynn was asked, under oath, what he thought about the peaceful transfer of power, his answer was one word “fifth.”

It’s going to take a while, may come too late, may involve a Supreme Court ruling on presidential pardons to criminal co-conspirators, but several of Trump’s capos are going to be tried, convicted and locked up, at least until another Republican president can spring them with an unappealable, totally non-corrupt, pardon.