I forgot that the January 6 hearings, Day 2, began this morning, but they’ll continue. The PBS live feed is below.

And it’s getting hot. Here’s a summary of what happened so far today from the New York Times. I’m afraid that if I start watching, I won’t stop!

Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman told the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that he told his boss on election night in 2020 that he had no basis for declaring victory, but Mr. Trump insisted on doing so anyway.

Mr. Trump “thought I was wrong. He told me so,” Bill Stepien testified, according to a videotaped interview the panel played on Monday at the second in a series of public hearings this month to lay out its evidence.

Feel free to discuss what’s going on as it comes down.

Here is the 10-minute video that, I believe, was shown the other day at the Congressional hearings on the January 6 Capitol invasion. It’s an excellent piece of filmmaking, juxtaposing the violence at the building with Donald Trump’s infuriating words.  And, to me, at least, it conveys a sense of how violent the invasion was, and how crazed the invaders were.  “Lock ’em up” was my response to a lot of the video, and, indeed, many will be.

I believe one reader the other day took me to task for saying that this was an “insurrection.” Well, it looks, sounds, and smells like an insurrection to me.

pic.twitter.com/Po7qA3xecf

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022

As a supplement, here’s a 40-minute video, produced by the New York Times, on the events of that day. The YouTube description is below:

The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was perhaps the most widely documented act of political violence in history. The New York Times obtained, analyzed and mapped out thousands of cellphone videos, police bodycam recordings and internal police audio to provide the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why. Our Oscar-shortlisted documentary “Day of Rage” charts in chilling detail how the peaceful transition of power was disrupted by rioters who stormed a seemingly impenetrable seat of government.

It’s more thorough but not as powerful as the shorter video above.

Reader Steve sent me a link to a Heather Cox Richardson post along with a comment:

You may know that Heather Cox Richardson is the top Substacker in terms of number of subscribers and amount of earnings. I think her opening paragraphs here are the perfect summary of how the USA got to this point in its history.

If a future historian writes about this time, like Gibbons did about the Roman Empire, he or she could use the Reagan presidency as the start of the decline and fall of the USA.

In fact, I hadn’t heard of Heather Cox Richardson (mea culpa), but found out that she is a Professor of History at Boston College, author of six books on history and politics, and is indeed the most widely read author on Substack. Below is the piece I was directed to, which you can read by clicking on it (but subscribe if you read regularly):

I’ll let you read the first three paragraphs for yourself; they recount how Reaganism led to the concentration of wealth among Americans, and, even though Democrats kept getting elected, Republicans started to delegitimize elections, culiminating in the January 6 insurrection. Perhaps she’s right about Reagan, but perhaps she’s not.

I was more interested in this, though:

Today, Maggie Haberman reported in the New York Times that on January 5, Marc Short, then–vice president Mike Pence’s chief of staff, told Pence’s lead Secret Service agent that Trump was about to turn against Pence publicly and that the vice president could be in danger. Clearly, members of the administration anticipated violence on January 6 and, astonishingly, expected it because of the actions of the U.S. president.

Click to read the NYT story. It’s worrisome, but I don’t see any serious evidence that Pence was ever in physical danger—at least from Trump. As hotheaded as Trump is, I can’t believe he’d think he’d survive in politics after masterminding an attack on his own Vice President:

Back to Richardson’s piece, though. It’s about economics, about which I know little and am not inspired to learn more. It’s also a news summary and I don’t see a lot of original thought. But remember, this is the first piece I’ve ever read by her, so the rest may be better. As for this one, I wasn’t inspired by snippets like this:

On Tuesday, Biden published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal touting his economic successes and explaining how he plans to transition from the red hot economy of the past year to stable, steady growth. He promised to work with anyone “willing to have an open and honest discussion that delivers real solutions for the American people.”

Will any Republicans take him up on it? Something else Biden wrote makes me doubt it: “I ran for president because I was tired of the so-called trickle-down economy. We now have a chance to build on a historic recovery with an economy that works for working families.”

Or this, which I already knew because a. it’s three days old (the column is June 3), and because it was reported in all the major media.  Likewise with her last paragraph:

And on Wednesday, as the horrific murders of schoolchildren and teachers in Uvalde, Texas, have been followed by several more mass killings, Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson claimed that Democratic efforts to promote gun safety are not about public health. Instead, he said, Democrats want to disarm the people because they’re afraid of a popular uprising against them because “they know they rule illegitimately.”

Well, yes, I’d heard that, too. In truth, this piece looks more like a news summary than a thoughtful analysis of the news. I read another of her columns, which was more of the same, but with perhaps a bit more analysis.  Still, I read Substack alongside the regular media (which also has op-eds) to garner long-form analysis and original thought, and I haven’t seen a lot of it in the three pieces I read. Still, perhaps people want a thoughtful yet short-form summary of the important news, which might explain Richardson’s popularity.  One of her advantages, too, is that she can explain current events in light of history, as she did in a third column. Still, I find other Substackers more intellectually challenging.

To each their own.

Good morning from Patagonia, as we thread our way down toward the Drake Passage. We’ll have some more photos later today.

Here’s a lovely comment attempted by reader “barube” on my post “The invasion brings out the kooks“, pointing out that a lot of American termites emerged from the woodwork during this invasion.  Reader “berube” underscores that point.

You are a great biologist, but you are wacked out as far as politics goes. Like Sam Harris, you lack any ability to be objective re Trump. Like Shapiro likes to say, the facts do not care about your feelings. The facts are: Crimea was lost under the feckless leadership of Obama. Ukraine may be lost under the even more feckless Biden. There is no way what is happening, would be happening, under Trump. Please seek out help for your Trump derangement syndrome.

Yeah, Trump would have helped Putin take over Ukraine. Here we have another “wacked out” Trump-lover who should know that the proper pejorative is “whacked out”. I believe Trump Derangement Syndrome, which once meant those people who were (properly) driven wild by the ex-President’s lunacy, should now apply to those like “barube”, who think Trump was a fantastic President and would have saved Ukraine had he remained in the White House.