The Jan. 6 Report – A ‘Pop-Up Ad’ Nightmare For the GOP

Is there a single person who has gone online that hasn’t learned to HATE pop-up ads?  Often intensely?  By intense, I’m talking fantasies about Spanish Inquisition like stuff for those who keep finding ways around ad-blocking software folks buy.  Or for advertisers who think that pissing off people by blocking out huge chunks of the screen with their “LOOK AT ME/BUY ME!” message and even make it jump around (sometimes) a bit or make the “close” box hard to click and cause you to instead open up the effing ad think that’s the way to win customers over.  Well, as the title of this suggests I believe there’s now a case to be made that one “pop-up” creator should not only be given a pardon for their efforts, but a reward!

Think I’m a tad off-base?  Or drifting somewhere between here and the fourth dimension?  Consider this:  Since the J6 Report dropped we’ve started to see transcripts from witnesses, parts of which (only parts I remind you) have been in the news.  And tweets and some other stuff.  Most people won’t have the time, even if they’ve got the inclination to read through the main report itself, much less through the countless thousands of pages of supporting evidence.  They will rely on journalists, both in print and electronic media to do that (or have their researchers do it) and hit us with stuff.  (And political junkies as can be found on this and other blogs I might add)  If not every day, in these initial weeks we’ve seen several news grabbing revelations.

Could it be the January 6 Committee, knowing the odds there would be a GOP controlled Congress that would among other things try to take a dump on their work crafted a plan to instead keeping taking a dump on them?  I can easily envision a foreseeable future of multiple times a week, news along the lines of “check out THIS from the J6 material!” hits the news.  For the GOP it will be like a Michael Myers mashed together with Freddy Krueger pop-up ad.  Every time they think they will get a few days of “Hunter’s laptop” (or his dick) another J6 bombshell will pop up in the news and overshadow them!

With the feces-flinging display over who will wield the Speaker’s Gavel about to start I wanted to drop this in front of folks now.  It will be interesting to see if more J6 Report news breaks through and gets reported on at least once in the next few days.

I think I underestimated just how smart the January 6 Committee was.  I accepted early on in their work that they’d be on a deadline, and have to make some tough decisions that incredible as it might seem given all they’ve uncovered there wound be limits to the scope of their work.   While we came oh so close to retaining control of the House, as the saying goes close only counts with horse shoes and hand-grenades so the pass I’d resolved to give the Committee not to cover as much ground as I wanted them to (in particular the security breakdown leading up to the insurrection riot) still holds.  If one paid attention to some of the sometimes level-headed pundits the point was sometimes made that long, long before they were even done with hearings they’d started drafting their report.  And of course continually updating it as new information came in.  The editing went on right through the end of the final public hearing, and even afterwards.

I’ll admit that while it was worth watching I felt disappointed to a degree when Chairman Thompson banged the gavel and declared their work closed.  Part of me (a big part!) hoped for some new bombshell revelation or even a surprise witness.  Instead we got what was in effect a “closing argument” artfully delivered as the various members read their assigned portions of it to the cameras/public and into the Congressional Record.  It wasn’t really news at that point they would vote on criminal referrals, including even for Trump so even that fell a little flat for me.  There was nothing to do but wait for the report and all that evidence the Committee promised to publicly release.  I took note of one quite practical and necessary fact on that point which is that while they had or were about to turn over everything they’d gotten to DOJ, because of ongoing criminal investigations and even prosecutions some stuff would have to, for the moment remain under seal.  So the Committee should get a pass from you too if there is stuff you really, really want to see right now and it’s not available.

Every person that can be prosecuted damn well should be and none of us should want those prosecutions and the investigations leading up to them (which can result in more investigations and even prosecutions) compromised.

In any case, the the full January 6 Committee Report has been published.   The report itself is over 800 pages long.  Hell, the Executive “Summary” alone is 154 pages.   But that’s not all folks.  There are appendices too, and that my friends is over ten times as many pages worth of material as the main report itself!  (Not to mention hundreds, if not even thousands of hours of video) There are documents, transcripts of interviews, testimony given under oath and all kinds of stuff.  And you know what?  It’s already clear within even the stuff that’s been released there is a gold mine of information.  Like any gold mine, there are small bits all around but if you do some real digging, and follow those “barely there” strands of gold you wind up finding some big ole chunks of the stuff.  With so many thousands of pages of written documentation of evidence and lest we forget video not just of rioters rioting but various witnesses testifying there are countless big ole chunks of gold.

And that my friends is what some journalists (not to mention the DOJ) will be doing for a long time to come.  Mining that report.  Journalists will grab an untold number of news cycles on a regular basis.  So will the DOJ as it takes that same information, combines it with what they’ve developed on their own (or fleshed out because they can actually enforce their subpoena power) and actual criminal charges get filed.  And as those court cases work their way through the system they too will keep taking over news cycles!

The GOP can cry, or scream all they want but like pop-up ads on their computers will keep raining on their parade.  Better still, now and then it will be one of those that takes over the whole screen, forcing a person to shut down, reboot and scan for viruses/malware leaving them without a computer for a while!  Even worse for the GOP, their bullshit attempts to have their own hearings will provide a nice, and for them ugly comparison to how Congress should conduct a hearing, real evidence from credible witnesses and actual real documentation with their carnival barker act.   I can imagine their dismay.  Actually, I can imagine a lot more than that.

In their fantasies they dreamed of somehow, some way something happening to every member of the J6 Committee, be it alien abduction for the month of December, them all getting on a bus for a destination Christmas Party out in the Shenandoah Valley and getting lost for a month, or in some cases darker thoughts like what’s left of the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers kidnapping them.  Anything to keep them from approving a final report and the release of their findings.  Even now, with some of the material withheld from the public at the DOJ’s request they have every intention of suppressing it.  Hey, Bill Barr is out of work these days and for enough money he’ll give them pointers…

Here’s their problem though: The DOJ already has it ALL!  The antics of Gym Jordan jumping up and down in court demanding all of it be given back is entertaining.  Ok, so he’s not that crazy but he’ll sure (sans sportcoat/suit jacket of course) do so on TV!  So will others.  I really do hope they go to court to try and get DOJ to return everything.  Those smackdowns ought to be epic!   At the very least, as long as they are in charge of the House the GOP will fight to keep every bit of evidence the DOJ asked to be withheld from the public private, even once the DOJ says it’s now okay to make it public.  They might have some success with that, if only temporary.  First, there’s not a damned thing they can do to stop the DOJ from releasing some of what the J6 Committee gathered in one of their famous “Speaking Indictments.”  And rest assured that will happen.  The GOP also can’t destroy any of that evidence.  That would be a felony in and of itself, and since they already have it in hand if down the road Democrats get the chance to release it and the GOP dumped it I people, Congress Critters or not are going to wind up in court.  Or jail!

So it’s my 2023 (and beyond?) prediction that the final report of the January 6 Committee will, for the GOP prove to be the political version of the computer pop-up ad from hell.  And that the J6 Committee long ago, knowing that 2023 would see a GOP controlled House set things up so it would be exactly that.

To which I say, paraphrasing some “Well done thou good and faithful public servants; Enter thou into the political entertainment Hall of Fame.”  Because for me at least it’s going to be entertaining as hell to watch the GOP asshats try to deal with what they’re facing!