Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jan-6-...-trump-11655038308?mod=hp_opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s

Jan. 6 Hearing Disappoints This Democrat
The country needs an objective accounting of the Capitol riot, not a partisan one.
By Ted Van Dyk
June 12, 2022 11:51 am ET

Count me as a Democrat disappointed by the way my party has responded to Donald Trump—with narratives that often prove untrue. Two impeachments by House members failed because they were undertaken on a partisan basis.

The House Jan. 6 hearings offered an opportunity to examine Mr. Trump’s activities carefully. But it didn’t happen. Thursday’s opening statements by Chairman Bennie Johnson and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney were more like prosecutors’ closing arguments than introductions to a fact-finding inquiry. Ms. Cheney read aloud a statement by Mr. Trump that was supposed to implicate him in inciting his followers—but she left out that he told his followers: “Go home.”

The committee members included harsh Trump critics like Rep. Adam Schiff. Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Republican members nominated by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and allowed only Mr. Trump’s outspoken Republican opponents—Ms. Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger—to serve on the committee. As a result, chances for a bipartisan outcome were lost and any minority report will be undertaken outside the committee. There will be no consensus on any findings, only further polarization.

The country is desperate for pragmatic problem solving and at least an attempt by leaders to collaborate across partisan and ideological lines. This applies not only to Jan. 6 but to the economy, national security, immigration, homelessness and crime. That isn’t what we are getting.

Republicans, too, are guilty of pursuing one-party approaches and reflexively opposing anything put forward by the Democratic administration or congressional leaders—including firearms-control legislation. Both parties seem to be directed by their fringe elements. The test of these approaches will come in November midterm elections.

The Jan. 6 hearings will have a long run. There remains time for testimony and exhibits that address unanswered questions: Why didn’t clear advance warnings of trouble result in enhanced security in and around the Capitol? Why was there such a long delay before reinforcements arrived? Did Mr. Trump’s encouragement of the demonstrators extend to planning and direction of their Capitol invasion?

Americans, including me, want a full accounting of everything surrounding the Jan. 6 chaos. It wasn’t a Fort Sumter-like insurrection, but it was an unprecedented and uncalled-for planned disruption of a vital constitutional process—the validation of electoral votes—and an offense against the rule of law. The hearings shouldn’t be a nonstop prosecution but a traditional, serious inquiry into everything and everyone involved in Jan. 6. The country needs the latter. So do both political parties.

Mr. Van Dyk was active in Democratic national policy and politics for 40 years. He is author of “Heroes, Hacks and Fools.”
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insurrection?

 

As with the other post, was there any violence (which is part of the definition insurrection)? There were a lot of protesters arrested during Kavanaugh's vote.

 

They were obviously not from Jan. 6th or they would have included the mob bashing and assaulting law enforcement officers which did not happen at Kavanaugh's hearing.

 

For @Commodore a peaceful protest by liberals = violent insurrection from the far right.

 

Actually it's

a peaceful protest by liberals is 1,000,000,000 times worse than a violent insurrection from the far right.

 

As I said in the other thread the amount of deflection being done shows how solid the case is that the election wasn’t stolen, Trump knew it and tried to cling to power through illegal means.

 

You're transphobic. Pathetic.

 

not sure I understand the comment re: the Brit Hume tweet

 

You and Brit are very confused as to what the words "unlawfully present" means

 

No.. it was in regard to a tweet he he proudly retweeted in another thread. Really sad transphobic display. He didn't even try to hide his transphobia.

 

must have missed that

 

It's in the gun control thread.

 

The column below was written in 2009. Ted Van Dyk remains a "favorite" Democratic columnist for the Right-leaning WSJ.

From The New Republic:

Barron YoungSmith/July 16, 2009

'Wall Street Journal' Finds The Perfect Democrat?

Today's Wall Street Journal contains an op-ed by someone named Ted Van Dyk, a disillusioned Democrat that has fallen out of love with Barack Obama. "The first warning signals for me came with your acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention," Van Dyk writes. "In it, you stressed domestic initiatives that clearly were nonstarters in the already shrinking economy. ... Cut back both your proposals and expectations."

Who the heck is this guy? According to his byline, he was Vice President Hubert Humphrey's assistant and "active in national Democratic politics for over 40 years." He claims to have campaigned for Kennedy, Humphrey, Tsongas, and George McGovern--but a Nexis search reveals that he has been posing as an "enraged Democrat" abandoned by Democrats since at least the Carter administration. Liberals should dissent, of course, but this guy is just ridiculous. Check out this assortment of his clippings.


"Readers who remember Ted Van Dyk as a sometimes-conservative voice on the editorial page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer might be surprised at his identification as a 'visceral Democrat.' ... in 1976, Van Dyk says, Jimmy Carter was about himself. He offered 'a campaign without a core.'" --The Seattle Times, Dec. 2007

"Commentary by Ted Van Dyk, Democrat, criticizes Pres Clinton, casts Bob Dole as rightful successor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, a leader 'for the little guy.'" --Wall Street Journal abstract, Oct. 1996

"Van Dyk is upset, he says, by Clinton's signing the welfare-reform bill-a 'stark abandonment of the little guy Democrats have championed since FDR'-and by Clinton's 'refusal to deal truthfully with the crisis of middle class entitlements.'" -Charlotte Observer, Oct. 1996

"Commentary by Ted Van Dyk criticizes House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, Whip David Bonior and majority of House Democrats for sabotaging free trade negotiations; labels them not liberal, but isolationist, protectionist, and reactionary."--Wall Street Journal abstract, May 1997

"With Vice President Al Gore's formal nomination for president last night, and his selection last week of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman as his 2000 running mate, the Democratic Party may finally be coming out on the other side of what it later will see as its eight-year degradation by a president who polarized and lied to the country and who was guided by little more than his personal and political self-interest." --LA Times, Aug. 2000

"Commentary by Ted Van Dyk opposes election of Howard Dean as Democratic Party chairman as culmination of reactionary groupthink that has led party to repeated election defeats." --Wall Street Journal abstract, Feb. 2005

"As a lifelong Democrat, I am concerned that President Obama could come out of his first 100 days decidedly weaker than when they began. His November victory was not as strong as anticipated, given the unpopularity of the outgoing Bush administration, a weakening economy, and an often inept McCain-Palin Republican ticket. Yet Obama has proceeded as if he were a landslide winner, like Lyndon Johnson in 1965 and Reagan in 1980, and has pushed forward a costly and ambitious domestic agenda even though we remain in a severe economic downturn." --Seattle Crosscut.com, March 2009

There's not really a clear line of ideological criticism that runs through his columns. Are Democrats too liberal? Are they not liberal enough? The only discernable constant is that Van Dyk touts his lefty credentials and then uses that credibility to rail against the Democrats in charge... almost as if he did that for a living. Congrats to the Journal on finding a true-blue Dem willing to bash Obama.

https://newrepublic.com/article/50976/wall-street-journal-finds-the-perfect-democrat

 

that's a pretty elaborate ad hominem. good job on the deep research!!

 

Sucks when you get caught.....