January 6th was terrifying. Now ICE is terrorizing people in their homes, on the street, at their kids' schools - yet Congress looks on, doing nothing to stop them. This is not the America I grew up in. Jack Smith is a hero. The Capitol police who protected Congress are heroes. All the violence is coming from MAGA, even as they try to label peaceful protestors as terrorists (it's not working). They're kidnapping 5-year-olds.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on most of what you have written, Kay.
However, I believe this is the America we grew up in, just on a larger, more visible scale, with complete acknowledgment and acceptance from a corrupt, authoritarian regime. Certain groups in our country have suffered greatly, and continue to do so.
Should we be able to save our democracy, we must make reforms.
I think we will be "rebuilding." The fascists (or are they Nazis) have broken so much of the government: everything coming out of "healthcare" and Justice and DHS is lies. The competent professionals are leaving. The FBI is hardly tracking serious crimes any more. All but a sliver of our media is afraid to tell the truth. Much of our judicial system is still functioning but the people with the final say are zealots, not truth-seekers. And AI... is a magnificent tool of psychological warfare. And people are still on X and are still buying Teslas, etc.
I think it will get worse, and I think we will prevail. But we may be standing on a lot of rubble.
Maura - Yes. You're right. I feel stupid that I really didn't understand it or see it this clearly before. Pieces of it, yes. Degrees of it, yes. Of course there were always events portrayed as fringe or aberrant. As an old white woman, I personally have not experienced what happens in minority populations. Now the white-washing has collapsed and will no longer work because the media is blatantly lying to us about things we can see with our own eyes. I see the complicity of the government in criminal behavior. The Epstein scandal and the degree to which extreme wealth allows an elite minority to get away with raping children, killing adults, capturing people. I used to believe the "one bad apple" theory of racial violence. Now we're witnessing an ethnic cleansing campaign. But in the 1980s, what happened to Rodney King was presented as an isolated incident. What happened to George Floyd made me understand why people wanted to defund the police. At that time, I said to someone, "It seems like they're killing a black person every month," and she replied, "That we know of," implying there were countless murders we knew nothing about because they were never reported. Because no one considered them newsworthy - or because the media has been lying for the duration, controlled by white owners who want us to think there's nothing to see or know or question. White people need to connect the dots about this if they have not yet done so. Then we had January 6th faux-viking marauders attack the Capitol. We saw a vulgar, vile man get elected for second term. We've heard from the Epstein victims. Of course most women know, because we've experienced it ourselves, that men molest children. Usually, we think we're the only ones, that it's an isolated incident, and we feel like it's our fault. We get a little older and conclude some men are creeps. Again, that it's an aberration. Now we are seeing, out in the open, our current government breaking the law and getting away with it, because a tiny minority has more money than God. They're violating the Constitution, breaking laws we'd all go to prison for breaking. No one does anything. Renee Good, white mother of a six-year-old, was shot right in the face after dropping her son at school. No more stories or excuses can cover up the fact that violence is built into the system. We have a caste system white people don't talk about and for the most part can ignore because we're not being threatened or attacked. We think it's something that happens to Other People, not in our neighborhoods. Most middle class white people are aware in the back of our minds that having money and the ability to hire good attorneys makes a difference in who goes to prison and who does not. The whole situation forces me to confront the meaning of racism as a function of a power imbalance. False assumptions operate as the foundation of our society keeping us in our assigned places. Racism is not about people saying mean things. It's not even about hostility. It's either about mass-scale brainwashing coupled with a false narrative that is used to make brown people more disposable and less relevant than white people. Or, apparently for a much larger portion of the population than I'd ever realized, it's about white people being consciously or unconsciously complicit in maintaining that narrative. If the government isn't after us because we are white, we're safer. My generation was taught in our public school classrooms that white people were the center of everything, the relevant insiders, with the whitest white people being the most important, and the beige white people as less important or less acceptable. No one ever explained what it was about. I grew up hiding my ancestry because I was terrified, and feeling somehow inherently dirty because of it. Only the people who have strength in their families and communities can survive bigotry emotionally intact. And even then, they still have to be alert to external threats. For humanity to be worth saving, we all have to believe with our whole hearts that humanity is worth saving. This is why I believe love is God trying to reach us.
Exactly right. The ONLY things they care about are (1) keeping their job/office and (2) staying on Trump's good side. They're cowards. They know the truth.
It's the top-notch work that Jack Smith & his team did that really scares these guys because they're well aware that Trump & most of those surrounding him should be in prison now. Trump knows it too & will do literally (and I do mean literally) anything to save his skin.
The only way forward is to vote them ALL out in November, then do everything humanly possible to impeach, remove, and prosecute Trump. Remember: SCOTUS only said that the president has immunity when he's doing things that are part of his job. Overturning an election is NOT part of any president's job.
After that? Vote in a Democrat in Nov 2028. Yeah, it will be a mess picking a nominee. But any of the options are better than anyone the Republican party will nominate.
After that? Nuremberg-style trials for everyone involved in Jan 6 AND every law breaker in this ugly excuse for an administration.
I feel the same about my grandchildren. This is what happens when some people are so uninformed and put a mental case & crook back in office. All of it is so shameful. But my grand- children know the truth. Not from me, but from their parents. Which is huge relief to me.
My grandkids know the truth too and they're only 6/7. Not sure from where but not from me either and I am relieved as well! I am not sure if they were all uninformed- they just don't want to see it or feel the same way.
“Here’s the problem: moving on is what you do after you tell the truth. Moving on is what you do after accountability, after consequences, after you’ve reinforced the guardrails so it doesn’t happen again. Moving on is not what you do while you quietly saw at the guardrails—then act shocked when the country starts sliding.”
“If we haven’t learned from the past (and it’s VERY OBVIOUS that we have not) we are doomed to repeat it.” And here we are.
Maybe if the MAGATS hadn’t been allowed to vote Trump back into office, things would be different right now but they’re not. Very nicely written assessment, Adam, and I just wish there were more principled people like you still in Congress. I’m hopeful that the midterms are going to be held and can solve at least some of this mess. Dems need new leadership ASAP and the old guard on both sides need to be culled. I’m 73 and this is all so discouraging and sad. Trump is a travesty in every way and needs to be investigated and finally punished. Everything is being done right out in the open now…just a disgrace. He deserves to live the rest of his life in jail for what he’s done to this country. Make no mistake, Trump has gotten away with stuff his whole life…just make enough chaos and people get exhausted and walk away. But his evil is endless bc he’s never satisfied with anything. We deserve better than this. I’m just hoping I live long enough to see the end of this madness. Thank you for your efforts. I appreciate that you have given up a lot and know you have been punished for doing the right thing.
DJT also knows if he’s not in office he could go to jail! Self serving lunatic continues because power hungry kleptocratic supremacists hatefully serve as puppeteers in this dystopian double-speak Orwellian era. Today’s video, Adam, was one of your best! Listen America…listen.
You are correct on all counts, persecuting Jack Smith and trying to make him look like a liar will never work. Many of us saw just what happened over and over and over again. And NO pardon in the world will ever make it look like a day at the park, tourists, or anything like that. Those people had bear spray, they had an array of all kinds of things. They took shields from the police and used them to break windows and doors. They crushed police inside the capitol and smeared crap on the walls. I truly remember a certain person saying "time to march on the capitol building to stop the counting of the ballots" and I remember them yelling "Hang Mike Pence" and I also remember them going into Nancy Pelosis's office and making themselves at home. That stuff will never go away because I'm recalling it from that day when I watched the whole thing unfold. I believe the one that stated the bit about marching to the capitol seem to allude to the fact that he would be going with them which didn't happen. He got them all ramped up and set them loose!
I detest what I watched yesterday of the Jack Smith hearing.
I was embarrassed for the Republicans. We have video, we have recorded testimony of what happened. To see the acting and yelling going on, in the face of Jack Smith's calm and integrity stood out sharply in contrast. I want my congressmen and to comport themselves in that way, and not in the horrid exhibition that we saw.
I hope they understand that this is what most of us saw, rather than the lies they all told.
What about the Epstein files?? (Just making sure we're. not forgetting.)
History is important, and the history that will be written about this will stain the Republican party in a way that they'll most likely never come back from. The party that tried to overthrow the democracy. The party that wanted a dictator or king. Or, simply the cowardly party that cared more for special interests and their own power than in safeguarding the country, supporting and engaging in the worst corruption we've ever had in our history.
The call to erase the bad deeds of those in power is a strong one in authoritarian and hierarchical groups. It is seen most often in the covering up of sexual misdeeds. This is how religious communities, businesses and institutions protect those in the highest positions. Financial misdeeds are also covered up. The christian nationalist agenda calls for this by silencing the voice of women and males of lower status.
When Trump won a 2nd term I was stunned and so disappointed in the Americans who also apparently “moved on” and voted for this terrible excuse of a human being. I would have voted for a cardboard cutout of a candidate if it meant Trump wouldn’t be reelected. Inciting an insurrection because you are a sore loser is absolutely disgraceful and goes against everything this country stands for. We might as well be Russia, Hungary, and any number of other countries who don’t have free and fair elections. And after all that has happened in the past year I don’t understand why he is still polling at 40% approval. Who are these people? 😮
I, too, wonder about the 40%---almost half still accept Jan. 6 as "just tourists," the healthcare plan "like you have never seen before" (that is true--we have never seen it), the disregard of due process for immigrants (can anyone do a study on how many have been wrongly removed?), the elimination of the need of a warrant for breaking into someone's home, the blowing up of boats they said were delivering drugs, the kidnapping of Maduro and then the truth that this was about oil--and who is tracking the account in Qatar that Trump alone runs, the claiming of some sort of victory in Greenland where he can do what he was already allowed to do (1951) for protection, the abandonment of Ukraine, and on and on. Who are these 40% who don't mind any of this?
Hard to believe so many people refuse to acknowledge what happened right before their eyes and what they heard with their own ears. Speaking for myself, as I watched J6 unfold beginning with the President's "speech" at the ellipse to the march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the steps of the capitol and the ensuing attack on those protecting it, I have never been more embarrassed or ashamed of my fellow citizens actions and words. Shame on them. We can never forget that day and we can never forget who provoked and encouraged it. In fact demanded it. What a horrible weak man.
Yes. THIS!! Was so frustrating watching this. Every complicit Republican on the committee needs to be voted out of office! 😤
Well said, “We don’t need to live in the past. But we do need to defend the future.” Thank you, Adam!
And defending the future means documenting and preserving the past transgressions against our country and holding those responsible accountable
January 6th was terrifying. Now ICE is terrorizing people in their homes, on the street, at their kids' schools - yet Congress looks on, doing nothing to stop them. This is not the America I grew up in. Jack Smith is a hero. The Capitol police who protected Congress are heroes. All the violence is coming from MAGA, even as they try to label peaceful protestors as terrorists (it's not working). They're kidnapping 5-year-olds.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on most of what you have written, Kay.
However, I believe this is the America we grew up in, just on a larger, more visible scale, with complete acknowledgment and acceptance from a corrupt, authoritarian regime. Certain groups in our country have suffered greatly, and continue to do so.
Should we be able to save our democracy, we must make reforms.
I think we will be "rebuilding." The fascists (or are they Nazis) have broken so much of the government: everything coming out of "healthcare" and Justice and DHS is lies. The competent professionals are leaving. The FBI is hardly tracking serious crimes any more. All but a sliver of our media is afraid to tell the truth. Much of our judicial system is still functioning but the people with the final say are zealots, not truth-seekers. And AI... is a magnificent tool of psychological warfare. And people are still on X and are still buying Teslas, etc.
I think it will get worse, and I think we will prevail. But we may be standing on a lot of rubble.
Maura - Yes. You're right. I feel stupid that I really didn't understand it or see it this clearly before. Pieces of it, yes. Degrees of it, yes. Of course there were always events portrayed as fringe or aberrant. As an old white woman, I personally have not experienced what happens in minority populations. Now the white-washing has collapsed and will no longer work because the media is blatantly lying to us about things we can see with our own eyes. I see the complicity of the government in criminal behavior. The Epstein scandal and the degree to which extreme wealth allows an elite minority to get away with raping children, killing adults, capturing people. I used to believe the "one bad apple" theory of racial violence. Now we're witnessing an ethnic cleansing campaign. But in the 1980s, what happened to Rodney King was presented as an isolated incident. What happened to George Floyd made me understand why people wanted to defund the police. At that time, I said to someone, "It seems like they're killing a black person every month," and she replied, "That we know of," implying there were countless murders we knew nothing about because they were never reported. Because no one considered them newsworthy - or because the media has been lying for the duration, controlled by white owners who want us to think there's nothing to see or know or question. White people need to connect the dots about this if they have not yet done so. Then we had January 6th faux-viking marauders attack the Capitol. We saw a vulgar, vile man get elected for second term. We've heard from the Epstein victims. Of course most women know, because we've experienced it ourselves, that men molest children. Usually, we think we're the only ones, that it's an isolated incident, and we feel like it's our fault. We get a little older and conclude some men are creeps. Again, that it's an aberration. Now we are seeing, out in the open, our current government breaking the law and getting away with it, because a tiny minority has more money than God. They're violating the Constitution, breaking laws we'd all go to prison for breaking. No one does anything. Renee Good, white mother of a six-year-old, was shot right in the face after dropping her son at school. No more stories or excuses can cover up the fact that violence is built into the system. We have a caste system white people don't talk about and for the most part can ignore because we're not being threatened or attacked. We think it's something that happens to Other People, not in our neighborhoods. Most middle class white people are aware in the back of our minds that having money and the ability to hire good attorneys makes a difference in who goes to prison and who does not. The whole situation forces me to confront the meaning of racism as a function of a power imbalance. False assumptions operate as the foundation of our society keeping us in our assigned places. Racism is not about people saying mean things. It's not even about hostility. It's either about mass-scale brainwashing coupled with a false narrative that is used to make brown people more disposable and less relevant than white people. Or, apparently for a much larger portion of the population than I'd ever realized, it's about white people being consciously or unconsciously complicit in maintaining that narrative. If the government isn't after us because we are white, we're safer. My generation was taught in our public school classrooms that white people were the center of everything, the relevant insiders, with the whitest white people being the most important, and the beige white people as less important or less acceptable. No one ever explained what it was about. I grew up hiding my ancestry because I was terrified, and feeling somehow inherently dirty because of it. Only the people who have strength in their families and communities can survive bigotry emotionally intact. And even then, they still have to be alert to external threats. For humanity to be worth saving, we all have to believe with our whole hearts that humanity is worth saving. This is why I believe love is God trying to reach us.
I agree with you, Kay. Diversity has made our country a better, stronger place.
Inherent racism has always plagued America. Now, with the nascent fascist regime in place, it threatens to destroy us.
I hope Adam will go to Minneapolis and help spread the word (and videos, and smells) of what's happening.
Exactly right. The ONLY things they care about are (1) keeping their job/office and (2) staying on Trump's good side. They're cowards. They know the truth.
It's the top-notch work that Jack Smith & his team did that really scares these guys because they're well aware that Trump & most of those surrounding him should be in prison now. Trump knows it too & will do literally (and I do mean literally) anything to save his skin.
The only way forward is to vote them ALL out in November, then do everything humanly possible to impeach, remove, and prosecute Trump. Remember: SCOTUS only said that the president has immunity when he's doing things that are part of his job. Overturning an election is NOT part of any president's job.
After that? Vote in a Democrat in Nov 2028. Yeah, it will be a mess picking a nominee. But any of the options are better than anyone the Republican party will nominate.
After that? Nuremberg-style trials for everyone involved in Jan 6 AND every law breaker in this ugly excuse for an administration.
When and where will this all end? He is damaging so much. As a senior, I worry all the time for my grandchildren. It has to stop.
I feel the same about my grandchildren. This is what happens when some people are so uninformed and put a mental case & crook back in office. All of it is so shameful. But my grand- children know the truth. Not from me, but from their parents. Which is huge relief to me.
My grandkids know the truth too and they're only 6/7. Not sure from where but not from me either and I am relieved as well! I am not sure if they were all uninformed- they just don't want to see it or feel the same way.
Thank you again, Mr. Kinzinger, for eloquent words, and your common sense approach to the madness that is Washington.
This!!
“Here’s the problem: moving on is what you do after you tell the truth. Moving on is what you do after accountability, after consequences, after you’ve reinforced the guardrails so it doesn’t happen again. Moving on is not what you do while you quietly saw at the guardrails—then act shocked when the country starts sliding.”
“If we haven’t learned from the past (and it’s VERY OBVIOUS that we have not) we are doomed to repeat it.” And here we are.
Maybe if the MAGATS hadn’t been allowed to vote Trump back into office, things would be different right now but they’re not. Very nicely written assessment, Adam, and I just wish there were more principled people like you still in Congress. I’m hopeful that the midterms are going to be held and can solve at least some of this mess. Dems need new leadership ASAP and the old guard on both sides need to be culled. I’m 73 and this is all so discouraging and sad. Trump is a travesty in every way and needs to be investigated and finally punished. Everything is being done right out in the open now…just a disgrace. He deserves to live the rest of his life in jail for what he’s done to this country. Make no mistake, Trump has gotten away with stuff his whole life…just make enough chaos and people get exhausted and walk away. But his evil is endless bc he’s never satisfied with anything. We deserve better than this. I’m just hoping I live long enough to see the end of this madness. Thank you for your efforts. I appreciate that you have given up a lot and know you have been punished for doing the right thing.
Very sincerely,
Susan M. Wheeler
Norfolk, VA
DJT also knows if he’s not in office he could go to jail! Self serving lunatic continues because power hungry kleptocratic supremacists hatefully serve as puppeteers in this dystopian double-speak Orwellian era. Today’s video, Adam, was one of your best! Listen America…listen.
Thank you, Adam. Very well said. I hope people will look into the mirror and search their souls. It's way past time...
You are correct on all counts, persecuting Jack Smith and trying to make him look like a liar will never work. Many of us saw just what happened over and over and over again. And NO pardon in the world will ever make it look like a day at the park, tourists, or anything like that. Those people had bear spray, they had an array of all kinds of things. They took shields from the police and used them to break windows and doors. They crushed police inside the capitol and smeared crap on the walls. I truly remember a certain person saying "time to march on the capitol building to stop the counting of the ballots" and I remember them yelling "Hang Mike Pence" and I also remember them going into Nancy Pelosis's office and making themselves at home. That stuff will never go away because I'm recalling it from that day when I watched the whole thing unfold. I believe the one that stated the bit about marching to the capitol seem to allude to the fact that he would be going with them which didn't happen. He got them all ramped up and set them loose!
I detest what I watched yesterday of the Jack Smith hearing.
I was embarrassed for the Republicans. We have video, we have recorded testimony of what happened. To see the acting and yelling going on, in the face of Jack Smith's calm and integrity stood out sharply in contrast. I want my congressmen and to comport themselves in that way, and not in the horrid exhibition that we saw.
I hope they understand that this is what most of us saw, rather than the lies they all told.
What about the Epstein files?? (Just making sure we're. not forgetting.)
History is important, and the history that will be written about this will stain the Republican party in a way that they'll most likely never come back from. The party that tried to overthrow the democracy. The party that wanted a dictator or king. Or, simply the cowardly party that cared more for special interests and their own power than in safeguarding the country, supporting and engaging in the worst corruption we've ever had in our history.
The call to erase the bad deeds of those in power is a strong one in authoritarian and hierarchical groups. It is seen most often in the covering up of sexual misdeeds. This is how religious communities, businesses and institutions protect those in the highest positions. Financial misdeeds are also covered up. The christian nationalist agenda calls for this by silencing the voice of women and males of lower status.
Listen to the Sascha Riley interview regarding Jim Jordan. I wanted to reach through my screen and strangle that man yesterday.
When Trump won a 2nd term I was stunned and so disappointed in the Americans who also apparently “moved on” and voted for this terrible excuse of a human being. I would have voted for a cardboard cutout of a candidate if it meant Trump wouldn’t be reelected. Inciting an insurrection because you are a sore loser is absolutely disgraceful and goes against everything this country stands for. We might as well be Russia, Hungary, and any number of other countries who don’t have free and fair elections. And after all that has happened in the past year I don’t understand why he is still polling at 40% approval. Who are these people? 😮
I would have voted for Donald Duck before I'd have voted for Donald Trump--all three times.
I, too, wonder about the 40%---almost half still accept Jan. 6 as "just tourists," the healthcare plan "like you have never seen before" (that is true--we have never seen it), the disregard of due process for immigrants (can anyone do a study on how many have been wrongly removed?), the elimination of the need of a warrant for breaking into someone's home, the blowing up of boats they said were delivering drugs, the kidnapping of Maduro and then the truth that this was about oil--and who is tracking the account in Qatar that Trump alone runs, the claiming of some sort of victory in Greenland where he can do what he was already allowed to do (1951) for protection, the abandonment of Ukraine, and on and on. Who are these 40% who don't mind any of this?
Hard to believe so many people refuse to acknowledge what happened right before their eyes and what they heard with their own ears. Speaking for myself, as I watched J6 unfold beginning with the President's "speech" at the ellipse to the march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the steps of the capitol and the ensuing attack on those protecting it, I have never been more embarrassed or ashamed of my fellow citizens actions and words. Shame on them. We can never forget that day and we can never forget who provoked and encouraged it. In fact demanded it. What a horrible weak man.
That's the thing, they DO believe it! They just won't say it now.
Somebody needs to keep replaying their comments and tweets from the 21st and 22nd with their name quoted. Don't let it go. Make them face it!