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You can't find Nazi stuff at gun shows now, right? Or can you?
- Yesterday's January 6th hearing was stunning. Mike Pence almost got killed because Donald Trump almost got him killed. And it was all because Trump wanted to overturn an election and decided Pence was the weak link to make it happen.
- It was all so simple. John Eastman came up with a plan that Mike Pence could single handedly overturn the election by not counting the electoral votes on January 6th as required by the Constitution. Target one man. The weakest man in the administration. A man who is a true Trump sycophant. And when it didn't work, you let the mob be your last "Hail Mary."
Front page of the New York Times today 
Eastman on January 6th. - The timeline as laid out yesterday by the Committee:
- Twenty minutes before Trump speaks to the mob he had called to Washington (because it will be "wild"), he calls Mike Pence in front of his inner circle to make one final attempt to strong arm Pence to not count the electoral votes. He calls Pence the "P-word" during the "heated" conversation. These are actual photos from that moment.
- Trump then speaks to the mob and, as we learned yesterday, changes his prepared remarks to include references to Mike Pence and what he wants him to do.
From the transcript. 
- At the same time as Trump is riling up the crowd, Pence announces via Twitter that he won't follow Trump and Eastman's illegal scheme.
- The mob then moved to the Capitol as directed by Trump and, once they breach it, Trump sends this tweet at 2:24 p.m. It might be the closest act to attempted murder a president has ever done. It is hard to think of a worse thing that any president has ever done. Seriously. Come up with a different one.
- The crowd acknowledges that tweet, it gets read on megaphones, and then the insurrectionists really get ramped up. "Hang Mike Pence!" is screamed as the Capitol is invaded. (Watch this new minute and half video shown yesterday of how the crowd kept referencing Pence.)
- With the mob getting close, the Secret Service moves Pence down to a loading dock for safety. The mob gets within 40 feet of him along the way. 40 feet.
- Pence, once in the loading dock area, refuses to get in a car and leave. As he told his Secret Service agent, "Tim, I know you, I trust you, but you’re not the one behind the wheel." Wow. But who can blame him? He doesn't know to what lengths Trump would go to stop the certification. The new photos are haunting.
- Finally, at 3:42 a.m., not to let Trump get away with his plan, the electoral votes are finally counted and Joe Biden is certified as President Elect of the United States.
- How John Eastman does note end up in prison over all of this is beyond me. He came up with the legal "theory" that the U.S. Vice-President had unilateral authority to reject certified State electors -- a plan he knew was illegal. And if Eastman deserves to go to prison for trying to overthrow the United States, how does Trump not go with him? And, if not, what the hell does it take if this attempted coup doesn't get you there? Even Eastman knows he's in trouble because he put in for a pardon.
It's like he is ordering a pizza. - Fittingly, last night was the 50 year anniversary of the Watergate break in.
- Last thought on the hearings yesterday. Retired federal judge, and darling of conservatives everywhere, J. Michael Luttig, had some great things to say --- Trump poses a “clear and present danger to American democracy” for example. That's spot on. But, otherwise, he was a disastrous witness simply because of his presentation. He spoke slowly, with long pauses, and then wouldn't shut up. (Just look at how long his "opening statement" was. Good gawd. Talk about an ego.)
- A guy climbed the outside of the Devon building in downtown Oklahoma City yesterday. Here's a video from someone in an office as he goes by.
- A plane crashed into Lady Bird Lake yesterday.
- The SMU Jones film collection released silent footage yesterday of "A day at Camp Soroptimist in Paradise, Texas. KERA Collection. Early 1970s." I had never heard of that.
- Family/Genealogical DNA followed by police footwork solves another case.
- Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 1,080 days.
- Messenger: Above the Fold (we have a new unsolved murder and an unrelated story about how genealogical DNA led to a lost father for a Wise County man)
