DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus January 6th Fallout

I would like to hear how many of you think doing nothing about investigating January 6th is good policy from the Republicans?

It's obvious that at least a few of our congressional leaders and people in the Trump admin were at minimum complicit in the verbiage and incitement that lead to the assault on our nation's capital. Yet reluctance to act seems to be the order of the day for republican cowards in the Senate.

I don't think we can move forward while this stands. Progressives will not have it, I know that much. And in no way shape or form will we let republicans, trumpians, or anyone else involved escape accountability. This can never happen again...

Yet I'm hearing rumors that they are already planning more violence. I'm hearing and seeing that Biden's landslide win is not deterring the cult of dumbassery or it's nefarious hate group underbelly. Between attacks in many most red states on voters rights, abortion, taking power away from elected election officials to keep them from certifying results that one party doesn't like...

Welcome to the Handmaid's Tale in Fascist America! If congress doesn't act, I hope ANTIFA does. I think Capitol Police should taze/shoot first and ask questions later like these white supremacists are good with happening to POC. Maybe if we put down enough traitors, the rest of the dogs will evaporate. I know, I know, wishful thinking.

Seriously though, thoughts?

Kill it, don't talk about anything bad. Just wash it from your memory. It is embarrassing and no good will come from it.

If voters don't remember then there is a better chance for Republicans to win the house and senate in 2022.

It is all about power and stopping Biden and the Democrats.

Party Trumps America. Literally.

It is not difficult to figure out. It should not be that way, but it is.

It's not.

But ANTIFA ... But BLM ...

Are you saying it's not a good idea to ignore the JAN 6 insurrection?

I heard and later watched the events of that day.... IMO Those that committed that crime and those that pushed for it and those that are now trying to cover it up should be held accountable.

I think he's saying it's not good policy.

Me being dense: What's not good policy,, investigating? Not investigating?

I think he made it perfectly clear that refusing to investigate Jan. 6th was not good policy.

Okie Dokie

There sure doesn't seem to be any will in DC to get this done on the right, and I'm not certain the "centrist" GOPer-lites even want it done. Manchin certainly doesn't seem to want it. I think any of them not willing to protect the country over party in this instance should all summarily executed on the Capitol building lawn. If only that were a choice and not another insurrection...

There are some examples of good Republicans doing the right thing by calling out one of their own.

While it is rare to see such courage in Washington DC, where those GOP would rather hide the facts about the Jan 6 attack on the U.S. capital, voting to forgo any further investigation.

Just what is it the GOP in Washington trying to hide from the American people?

The more the GOP attempts to obstruct further investigation, the more determined the American people are in an effort to find out the truth.

The American people will find out the truth!



https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oregon-lawmakers-mike-nearman-state-capitol-breach-expel/

In historic move, Oregon lawmakers expel legislator over state Capitol breach

JUNE 11, 2021 / 7:12 AM / CBS/AP

Salem, Oregon — Republican lawmakers voted with majority Democrats in the Oregon House of Representatives to take the historic step of expelling a Republican member who let violent, far-right protesters into the state Capitol on Dec. 21.


Legislators said on the House floor that this could be the most important vote they ever cast. They then proceeded Thursday night to expel an unapologetic Representative Mike Nearman with a 59-1 vote, marking the first time a member has been expelled by the House in its 160-year history. The only vote against the resolution for expulsion was Nearman's own.

Representative Paul Holvey, a Democrat who chaired a committee that earlier Thursday unanimously recommended Nearman's expulsion, reminded lawmakers of the events of Dec. 21, which were an eerie foreshadowing of the much more serious Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.


"On the morning of Dec. 21st, a couple hundred protesters - some of them heavily armed and wearing body armor - arrived at the Capitol for a protest, with the intent to illegally enter and presumably occupy the building and interrupt the proceedings of the Oregon Legislature," Holvey said. "Staff and legislators were terrified. We can only speculate what would have happened if they were able to get all the way in."


Nearman said he let the protesters in because he believes the Capitol, which has been closed to the public to protect against spread of the coronavirus, should have been open. The assault happened during a peak of the pandemic.

He said, "Expelling me won't make this place safer," reports CBS Portland affiliate KOIN-TV. "This has not been a fair process. … The easy thing to do is expel me," he said.

But even Republicans, who are often bitterly opposed to Democratic initiatives on climate change and some other bills, said the crowd outside the Capitol that day was not made up of constituents who wanted to peacefully engage in the democratic process.


Some were carrying guns. Some shouted false QAnon conspiracy theories about Democrats kidnapping babies. They carried American flags, banners for former President Trump and a sign calling for the arrest of Democratic Goveror Kate Brown. They broke windows and assaulted journalists.

"Nobody should have opened the door to the people who were here that day," said Representative Daniel Bonham, a Republican and a member Holvey's special committee.

The final straw for Republican House members came on June 4, when video emerged showing Nearman choreographing how he would let protesters into the Capitol a few days before it actually happened. For his fellow lawmakers, that was proof it was a premeditated act, which Nearman acknowledged. All 22 of his fellow House Republicans wrote him on Monday, strongly recommending he resign.

Oregon-Lawmaker-Breach
Dec. 21, 2020 file photo shows pro-Trump and anti-mask demonstrators holding a rally outside the Oregon State Capitol as legislators met in emergency session in Salem, Oregon.
ANDREW SELSKY / AP
As lawmakers gathered to decide Nearman's fate, a few dozen people waving American flags and one carrying a sign saying "I am Mike Nearman" gathered outside the Capitol. One repeatedly kicked a metal door, sending booms through a marble hallway of the building.


After the vote, Oregon State Police troopers walked some of the lawmakers to their cars, KOIN says.

Nearman was seen on security video opening a door to protesters on Dec. 21 as lawmakers met in emergency session to deal with economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Protesters barged into the building, got into shoving matches with police and sprayed officers with bear spray.

"It's impossible to overstate the seriousness of the reason we are here today," Holvey said during the committee hearing. "Representative Nearman enabled armed, violent protesters to enter the Capitol, breaching the security of the Capitol, which was officially closed to the public, and also endangered the authorized staff and legislators inside the building."

Hundreds of people provided written testimony to the House Special Committee On December 21, 2020, which was composed of three Democrats and three Republicans.

Some who testified excoriated Nearman as a seditionist. Others praised him for letting people into the Capitol, saying residents should be allowed to attend even though hearings are livestreamed on video.

"Mike Nearman's behavior ... was abhorrent and anti-democratic," David Alba said. "Furthermore, by aiding and supporting extremists, he has placed people's lives in danger. He should be removed from office and he is not fit to represent my district."

But Nearman's supporters said they elected him and the House should not expel him. One supporter suggested the 22 GOP lawmakers who asked him to resign should be voted out of office.

"May your Republican constituents take no mercy on you," Casey Ocupe said in written testimony.

House Speaker Tina Kotek credited riot police, who finally pushed out the Dec. 21 protesters, with preventing a full-scale assault.

Nearman also faces two misdemeanor criminal charges and has said he will seek a trial by jury.

He's one of 11 people facing charges stemming from the incident, KOIN notes.

j/c

Oath Keeper enters first guilty plea in Capitol attack inquiry, agrees to help government

An Indiana man who wore an Oath Keepers Lifetime Member hat in the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors and will cooperate in the Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation.

Jon Ryan Schaffer, a heavy metal guitarist from Indiana, entered two guilty pleas in federal court on Friday on felony counts of obstruction of an official proceeding, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon.

This is the first guilty plea in the DOJ’s investigation into the Jan. 6. siege of the U.S. Capitol. The cooperation agreement is a key turning point for prosecutors who have been pursuing a broad conspiracy case against groups of rioters, including the paramilitary Oath Keepers group and the far-right Proud Boys organization.

In court documents in March, prosecutors said the ongoing conspiracy inquiry involves "a large number of participants." Prosecutors also have indicated that they have significant information on Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes actions during the attack.

On Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray described the investigation as perhaps the largest inquiry since the 9/11 attacks.

Prosecutors say Schaffer wore a tactical vest and carried bear spray and positioned himself at the front of a crowd that pushed past four Capitol Police officers on the west side of the building.

“Schaffer admitted to being among the first individuals to push past the damaged doors and into the Capitol building, forcing officers to retreat,” the Department of Justice said in a news release. “Schaffer and others advanced toward five or six backpedaling USCP officers while members of the mob swelled inside of the Capitol and overwhelmed the officers. The officers ultimately deployed a chemical irritant to disperse the mob.”

"The defendant in this case admits forcing his way into the U.S. Capitol on January 6 for the express purpose of stopping or delaying congressional proceedings essential to our democratic process,” FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbatte said in a news release. “These actions are disgraceful and unacceptable.”

Schaffer is a founding lifetime member of the extremist group known as the Oath Keepers, prosecutors say. Separate from Schaffer’s case, the DOJ has charged 12 members of the Oath Keepers, many with conspiracy for planning together ahead of the attack.

The terms of the plea agreement are broad and require Schaffer to fully cooperate with any matters the government deems relevant. The terms also leave open the possibility that Schaffer will be offered witness protection.

Schaffer has not yet been sentenced. The obstruction charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and the weapons charge 10 years in prison. He was originally arrested in January on six different federal charges related to his actions on Jan. 6, but the remaining four charges have apparently been dropped.

The plea agreement estimates Schaffer may serve 41 to 51 months in prison and face fines between $15,000 and $150,000. These recommendations are lower than maximum allowable penalties because of his lack of criminal history.

A federal judge also authorized Schaffer’s release from jail. He will be permitted to travel within the lower 48 states and will not be allowed to carry any firearms, including ones he may already legally own.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021...ent/7254317002/

j/c...

Wait, he had a weapon? I could swear I heard republicans say there weren't any weapons.. I'm sure some of them said that... I'm guessing someone lied about that and it isn't this guy, he just admitted to it.

The thing is, we all watched the attack, and unless someone had their heads up their butts, it was an attack committed by trump supporters and done at his request.

And he's still inciting this kinda thinking.. Just look at one idiot in Ohio over the weekend saying that if he's not reinstated by August, there will be a civil war.

Trump caused this with his words...

Here's what his supporters think.. at least this one.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...n-b1875064.html

Look I don't say "idiot" lightly.. My brother is one of those damn fools.. so are his two daughters.... I love them, but they are idiots...

I am sure the feeling is mutual.

They follow trump like he's a religion... I know I'm right and they are idiots....

Interestingly enough, you got nothing to say about the article I posted...

Bro, you took the time to post an article where one fool geared up at a drive-thru Army/Navy store and showed up talking about a civil war. How would you like someone to respond?

I heard there was another dude there that said Bugs Bunny was running on the 2024 ticket. What do you think about that??

It wasn't "one dude" on January 6th and if Trump's same rhetoric that he's still spewing now leads to even more violence, it won't be "one dude" the next time either.

I stand corrected... there will be a Civil War.

I'm not sure if you didn't comprehend the point or if you're just trying to circumvent the point.

The point is it isn't "one person" who feels this way and says these things. The evidence of that became perfectly clear on Jan. 6th. It wasn't "one fool" dressed up in military gear on Jan. 6th.

People warned about possible violence then and people such as you laughed about it. Now, even after it was proven to have happened you are trying to shrug it off. This is a growing movement that says these things and a growing movement that caused January 6th.

I'm sure you'll be trying to downplay it the next time it happens too. Because it will.

I was laughed at and mocked for saying there would be violence and bloodshed... then it happened.

All you have to do is look at the crime in the streets.

Defund the police my ass.

How Dems are turning the 'defund the police' mantra against the GOP

**EXCERPT**

In a written statement, Robyn Patterson, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) deputy communications director for, argued, "House Republicans voted against the funding their communities needed to keep police officers on the beat. If Republicans are looking for politicians who have voted to defund police departments, they only need to look in the mirror."

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show...st-gop-n1272882

That argument is laughable! It goes right up there with last summers riots were peaceful protests, and Antifa does not exist.

21 Republicans vote no on bill to award Congressional Gold Medal for January 6 police officers

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/congressional-gold-medal-house-vote/index.html

A Republican congressman refused to shake hands with a DC police officer beaten by Trump loyalists on January 6, according to 2 House members

https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-cong...on-jan-6-2021-6

Yeah, it's real funny stuff.

Educate yourself.

Don't hold your breath.

j/c...

Bro, I could post 20 different things like that.. so before you talk, you may want to research

Just clicking here.

Some/Many republicans in congress are repeating that it was NOT trump supporters that stormed the capital.. If that were true I'd expect them to want that come out. Meaning, if they really believe that, they absolutely should want an complete review of the facts.

The very fact that they are saying no to the investigation tell me they know what the truth is... And it scares them.

j/c:

Lol....Schiff is on this thing?

Many who were arrested have been tied to domestic terrorist organizations, known and vocal Trump supporters and QAnon supporters. They know they're lying to their base. That's why they've done everything to try and stop an investigation and lie to try and cover up what really happened.

Katie Porter should be on that committee. She gets answers and shuts down the BS.

Aren't you to be commended for wanting to shoot fellow American citizens. The riot got out of hand and there were some serious anarchists and coordinated homegrown terrorists, but many were just stupid and supporting a LOSER soon to be X-President who's so stupid he thought he could stop the transfer of power. He had only yes men/women around him....he's a idiot. Yet, he got most votes EVER except for Biden. To call Biden's victory a landslide, you must be on some mind altering stuff.

As a former Republican who voted for Biden and then a straight Republican ticket, I'm pleased we will investigate further and am ashamed of most Republican for still licking Trump's shoes.

It is sad we can't even talk politics- BOTH sides are run by extremists who won't read, talk, or watch anything from the other side....we are experiencing THOUGHT policing. WOW, what about the guy or gal standing on box, speaking their thoughts and being challenged politely....can't happen. VERY SAD.

I honestly don't remember the republican state senator from Michigan, but he's the guy that wrote the final report that the election in Michigan was NOT stolen. He wrote that it was a clean election..

This particular senator is a dyed in the wool republican. A true conservative. Supported and voted for Trump.

But he was put in charge of writing about the findings of the election.

Now, he and his family are receiving death threats from far right wing trump supporters..

The world we live in right now just isn't politics as usual. We live in a world that has bent to the will of a total nutjob.

I don't blame Liberals and Democrats and far Lefties for trying to fight fire with fire.. But remember, there are plenty of Democrats out there that haven't changed their stance on things for 40 years, but now they are being referred to a commies. And that's a nice term.

What they really are is Anti facists

DHS raises alarms over potential for summer violence pegged to August conspiracy theory
Zachary Cohen Geneva Sands
By Zachary Cohen and Geneva Sands, CNN

Updated 6:04 PM ET, Wed June 30, 2021
'The FBI was involved': Reporter pushes back on Trump supporter's wild claim



Washington (CNN)Department of Homeland Security officials are warning that the same sort of rhetoric and false narratives that fueled the January 6 attack on the US Capitol could lead to more violence this summer by right-wing extremists.

A growing belief among some Donald Trump supporters that the former President will be reinstated in August, coupled with relaxed Covid-19 restrictions, has DHS officials concerned that online rhetoric and threats could translate into actual violence in the coming months as more people are out and in public places.
The August theory is essentially a recycled version of other false narratives pushed by Trump and his allies leading up to and after January 6, prompting familiar rhetoric from those who remain in denial about his 2020 election loss. But the concern is significant enough that DHS issued two warnings in the past week about the potential for violence this summer.

In a closed-door meeting last Wednesday, DHS officials briefed lawmakers on the role that misinformation and disinformation play in creating circumstances for people to act violently, according to a congressional source familiar with the briefing.
On Monday, DHS issued an intelligence bulletin to state and local law enforcement partners about the increasing opportunities for violent extremist attacks this summer, including concerns that QAnon conspiracy theorists continue to promote the idea that Trump will return to power in August, according to a source familiar.
This latest series of warnings reflects an effort by DHS to be more proactive in sharing information about domestic extremist threats since pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, but it also comes as the department is still grappling with tough truths about its own role in the security breakdowns that occurred nearly six months ago.
The department has "no evidence" of a threat associated with the supposed date of Trump's return to office, but historically some domestic violent extremists "have conducted violence in furtherance of conspiracy theories," the bulletin said.
The bulletin also assessed the possibility that domestic terrorists might seek to exploit the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in order to attack a range of potential targets. The bulletin and briefing were first reported by Politico.
"You're going to have more people out. You're going to have more people in public places. And you increase the opportunities for individuals or groups of individuals who are interested in conducting attacks," a senior DHS official told CNN.
Some Trump supporters alluded to that possibility over the weekend during a rally in Ohio, where they were blunt in their assessment of what would happen if the former President were not reinstated later this summer.
"We are going to be in a civil war," one Trump supporter told CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.
Those concerns have prompted the department to ramp up its efforts working with state and local law enforcement and nongovernment entities to detect potential threats and mitigate them, the senior DHS official said.
A DHS spokesperson said the department is "focused on the nexus between violence and extremist ideologies" and is working to "prevent acts of domestic terrorism inspired by disinformation, conspiracy theories and false narratives spread through social media and other online platforms."
Lingering questions about January 6
The attack on January 6 exposed security breakdowns across a host of law enforcement agencies, including massive intelligence failures, critical miscommunications and unheeded warnings that ultimately led to the chaotic response that day.
Those problems ultimately redound onto DHS, an agency created to address similar intelligence breakdowns that occurred ahead of the 9/11 attacks and that has assumed responsibility for countering a rising threat posed by domestic extremists in recent years.
Yet there has not been a full accounting of DHS' role in the security failures that occurred on January 6 despite the investigative efforts by Congress and outside experts to date.
Among the most glaring questions is why the DHS intelligence branch did not produce any bulletin or warning about the potential for violence at the Capitol on January 6.​
Asked about this lapse by CNN, the senior DHS official said there has "absolutely" been a concerted effort since President Joe Biden took office in January to push more information to the public, as well as state and local governments.
The Homeland Security inspector general office says it is reviewing whether the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis fulfilled its responsibility for providing intelligence to law enforcement for January 6.
Senate committees investigating January 6 noted in a recent report that DHS has "yet to fully comply with the Committees' requests for information" about its role that day, but a source familiar with the matter tells CNN that the department will likely turn over more information going forward.
The acting head of the DHS intelligence branch, Melissa Smislova, testified to Capitol Hill committees in March that it is a "complex challenge" to distinguish between people engaged in constitutionally protected activities and those involved in violent behavior.
Over the last several months, DHS has attempted to pay more attention to domestic extremist threats, conducting an operational review of the department, prioritizing information sharing and reaching out to the tech sector, among other initiatives.
DHS is also examining whether more should be done to flag high-risk individuals when they are traveling, potentially applying additional scrutiny or notification to authorities, according to the senior official. This could go a step further than the threshold for putting someone on the terrorist watch list.
For example, DHS is exploring applying this extra scrutiny to someone deemed a risk for violence by local law enforcement or an individual subject to a court order "red flag" law.
But the official emphasized that this is still under review, as are several other initiatives led by DHS that were prompted by fallout from January 6.
Concerns about infiltration
Meanwhile, officials are looking to August for potential threats. In addition to the Trump reinstatement conspiracy theory, it is also the anniversary of two devastating domestic terrorism incidents -- the 2019 El Paso, Texas, shooting on August 3, which killed 23 people, and the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, car attack on August 12.
DHS is reviewing publicly available social media for explicit threats of violence in the lead-up to the anniversaries of these events, according to the bulletin shared earlier this week.
The overarching message during the congressional briefing last week was that DHS faces a challenge in remaining vigilant to the ways online disinformation can lead to potential violence, according to a source familiar with what was said during the closed-door session.
"There are also concerns about the level of infiltration," the source said. "This mindset is not really as fringe as we would all probably like for it to be. These people are in civil society, they're in public-sector jobs and positions of authority, and that's troubling."

The FBI and DHS have also detailed how adherents to online conspiracy theories, particularly those revolving around the 2020 election, are becoming more emboldened to take action in the real world following the January 6 attack.
DHS has previously warned about the persistent threat posed by "militia" extremists who typically target law enforcement and government personnel and facilities.
The militia threat "will almost certainly continue to be elevated throughout 2021" because of sociopolitical factors, a March joint threat assessment on domestic extremism said.
Present at that Ohio Trump rally were individuals who claimed to be members of the same militia groups whose members face federal charges related to their actions on January 6, a physical reminder of concerns about the threat they still pose.
"What's scary is that these groups have specialized training, they have access to weapons, and the rage is shocking and overwhelming," one source said about some of these militia groups that took part on January 6.
"It does kind of feel like there is just sort of a giant elephant in the room -- a threat that's kind of lying in wait. It does sort of feel like it can kind of rear its head at any moment," the source added.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/30/politics/dhs-summer-violence-warnings-conspiracy/

The Senator Who Decided to Tell the Truth

A Michigan Republican spent eight months searching for evidence of election fraud, but all he found was lies.

By Tim Alberta

VULCAN - Michigan—Right around the time Donald Trump was flexing his conspiratorial muscles on Saturday night, recycling old ruses and inventing new boogeymen in his first public speech since inciting a siege of the U.S. Capitol in January, a dairy farmer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sat down to supper. It had been a trying day.

The farmer, Ed McBroom, battled sidewinding rain while working his 320 acres, loading feed and breeding livestock and at one point delivering a distressed calf backwards from its mother’s womb, before hanging the newborn animal by its hind legs for respiratory drainage. Now, having slipped off his manure-caked rubber boots, McBroom groaned as he leaned into his home-grown meal of unpasteurized milk and spaghetti with hamburger sauce. He would dine peacefully at his banquet-length antique table, surrounded by his family of 15, unaware that in nearby Ohio, the former president was accusing him—thankfully, this time not by name—of covering up the greatest crime in American history.

A few days earlier, McBroom, a Republican state senator who chairs the Oversight Committee, had released a report detailing his eight-month-long investigation into the legitimacy of the 2020 election. The stakes could hardly have been higher. Against a backdrop of confusion and suspicion and frightening civic friction—with Trump claiming he’d been cheated out of victory, and anecdotes about fraud coursing through every corner of the state—McBroom had led an exhaustive probe of Michigan’s electoral integrity. His committee interviewed scores of witnesses, subpoenaed and reviewed thousands of pages of documents, dissected the procedural mechanics of Michigan’s highly decentralized elections system, and scrutinized the most trafficked claims about corruption at the state’s ballot box in November. McBroom’s conclusion hit Lansing like a meteor: It was all a bunch of nonsense.

“Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan,” McBroom wrote in the report. “There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters.”

For good measure, McBroom added: “The Committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.”

This reflected a pattern throughout the report—a clear and clinical statement of facts, accompanied by more animated language that expressed disgust with the grifters selling deception to the masses and disappointment with the voters who were buying it. Sitting at his dinner table, I told the senator that his writing occasionally took a tone of anger. He smirked. “I don’t know that I ever wrote angry,” McBroom replied. “But I tried to leave no room for doubt.”

So much for that. Soon after the report was released, Trump issued a thundering statement calling McBroom’s investigation “a cover up, and a method of getting out of a Forensic Audit for the examination of the Presidential contest.” The former president then published the office phone numbers for McBroom and Michigan’s GOP Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, urging his followers to “call those two Senators now and get them to do the right thing, or vote them the hell out of office!”

McBroom had grown up a “history nerd.” He idolized the revolutionary Founders. He inhaled biographies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. He revered the institution of the American presidency. And here was the 45th president, calling him out by name, accusing him of unthinkable treachery.

“Surreal,” McBroom said quietly. He leaned back, running his hands through a mess of sweaty blond hair. Then he folded his thick arms, which bulged from a red cutoff button-up shirt, staring heavenward in search of the words. Some 30 seconds went by. “Just … surreal.”

Perhaps trying to cheer himself, McBroom told me he doubted whether Trump had personally written that statement. He doubted even more whether Trump had actually read the report. (If he had, Trump would understand why an Arizona-style “forensic audit” would be pointless.) But this was cold comfort. In many ways, Trump was a stand-in for the constituents McBroom knew who insisted that the election was stolen, who raged against the scheming Democrats and the spineless Republicans, who believed that America was succumbing to an illegitimate leftist takeover. Most of them, McBroom realized, would not read the report, either. And he wasn’t sure what more he was supposed to do for them.

“I can’t make people believe me,” McBroom said, an air of exasperation in his voice. “All I can hope is that people use their discernment and judgment, to look at the facts I’ve laid out for them, and then look at these theories out there, and ask the question: Does any of this make sense?”

McBroom admitted to being a bit discouraged. It’s hard enough for an elected official to convince the public of something it doesn’t want to accept. Yet here he was, a lowly state lawmaker from the pastures of Dickinson County, struggling to win the hearts and minds of Trump voters while engaged in a zero-sum showdown with Trump himself.

“All politicians lie. That’s what people believe, right?” McBroom said. “Well, somebody is lying. It’s either me or—”

He stopped himself. “Somebody else.”

McBroom didn’t ask for any of this.

A fourth-generation farm boy from the U.P., he studied music education and social studies at Northern Michigan University, harboring dreams of being a teacher and leading a church choir. (He went one-for-two. McBroom is the music director at nearby First Baptist of Norway.) When several of his siblings passed on the opportunity to take over the family farm, McBroom assumed responsibility. He moved his wife, Sarah, whom he’d met at a college choir outing, and their young family to the farm. Joining them were McBroom’s younger brother, Carl; his wife (and Sarah’s sister), Susan; and their children. Together, Ed and Carl planned to grow the family business and raise their two clans as one on the sprawling McBroom compound.

Before long, however, Ed came to a detour. Having joined a host of farm-related civic organizations in the region, he found himself networking with politicians, and soon, unwittingly, being groomed to run for office himself. (Michigan has some of the tightest term limits in the nation and churns through legislators, which presents a constant demand for neophyte recruits.) McBroom had his doubts. Politics seemed an ugly, undignified game for a pious young farmer. And yet, he glowed with certain passions—outlawing abortion, preserving family values, fighting bureaucrats on behalf of the little guy—that could not be championed in the stables.

With the blessing of Carl, who committed to carrying the load on the homestead, McBroom ran for the state House of Representatives in 2010. Harnessing the energy of the Tea Party to defeat an incumbent Democrat—back when Democrats still represented rural northern Michigan—McBroom arrived in Lansing with visions of being a great conservative reformer.

They didn’t last. The Tea Party movement, he realized, was more interested in union-busting and ideological one-upmanship than in achieving tangible results. Meanwhile, his perch on the Agriculture Committee was proving ineffectual; state agencies so regularly pushed around the policy makers that McBroom wondered why he was even bothering to pass legislation. Feeling outmatched, he contemplated quitting the legislature. Only in the twilight of his time in the House did McBroom discover what seemed like his salvation, and what could later be considered his curse: the Oversight Committee. Realizing that the panel had the power to touch all areas of policy while holding the executive branch and Lansing bureaucracy to account, McBroom recommitted himself to politics. He picked the right horse for speaker of the House, maneuvered onto the committee, and positioned himself to continue oversight work if promoted to the Senate.

It was no foregone conclusion that he would seek higher office; in fact, McBroom took two years off from Lansing after his term-limited retirement in 2016. But by 2018 he was ready to resume his legislative career, running for a Senate seat that was his for the taking. Then tragedy struck: On July 7 of that year, Carl was killed in a car wreck near the farm. McBroom froze his campaign. He was now responsible not only for the entirety of a massive agricultural enterprise, and for his own five children, but for Carl’s seven children—plus the one Susan was carrying. He wasn’t sure how the farm would function with him being gone four days a week. But even if he worked the farm full-time, he wasn’t sure it could stay afloat. A Senate salary might offer a bridge to survival.

Having prayed and prayed on the decision, McBroom continued with the campaign. He felt God telling him he was needed in Lansing. After winning the seat, McBroom was promptly named chair of the Senate Oversight Committee. This offered an ideal work-life balance, granting him the autonomy to work odd hours that accommodated his 400-mile commute. It was a dream job—until the nightmare of November 2020.

“Two days after the election, Mike Shirkey calls me, and he says, ‘What do you think about all of this?’” McBroom recalled. “And I said, ‘I think people deserve answers.’”

At that moment, Michigan had emerged as America’s epicenter of electoral dysfunction. Despite boasting a wider margin than other contested states—Joe Biden led Trump by roughly 155,000 votes in the unofficial tally—Michigan was plagued by a series of episodes that lent themselves easily to misinformation and outright conspiracy. There was the reporting error in rural Antrim County, a Republican stronghold, that showed Biden trouncing Trump by an impossible margin. There was the late-night ballot dump at the TCF Center in Detroit, where poll workers covered the windows to prevent harassment from unsanctioned visitors. There were the widespread rumors about excess mail ballots floating around the state, a notion that found traction because of the historic swarm of voters taking advantage of a newly adopted no-excuse absentee-voting law. There was, above all, mass confusion about why the vote was taking so long to tabulate—and why Biden appeared to be the beneficiary.

“At the beginning, even before the investigation, I had a lot of those questions in my own heart,” McBroom told me. “Like, you watch the news or look on Facebook, and some of this seems really strange. What was going on over there? How did those votes get switched? Where did all those ballots come from in the middle of the night? These are legitimate questions, and it would have been unfair to just toss them aside.”

On November 6, McBroom announced that his committee would convene an investigation, beginning the next day, into allegations of misconduct in Michigan’s election. “Many of you have asked me to weigh in on the current election turmoil. I’ve been getting it from both sides who are fervent for the victory of their candidate,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “I guess I haven’t been inclined because my fervent desire is for a fair and honest result.”

Not everyone in Lansing knew what to make of McBroom and his investigation. Some Democrats saw a Trump-supporting, anti-abortion zealot from a deep-red district where failure to wave the “Stop the Steal” flag might be fatal. Some Republicans saw an unfailingly earnest, devoutly religious man who was offended by the president’s antics and wouldn’t hesitate to wield a righteous hammer against his own party. As the committee got to work, and concerns piled up across the ideological spectrum, one person never doubted where McBroom’s conclusion was headed. “He is a good and honest person,” said Aaron Van Langevelde, a longtime friend of McBroom and the former GOP canvassing official who received death threats after voting to certify Biden’s statewide victory. “[He] is always going to put his service to the people above politics.”

When he began investigating Detroit’s late-night dump of absentee votes—ballots that are uniquely numbered and require signature verification—McBroom said his mental cinema played scenes from The Italian Job. “You know, someone climbs up into the truck through a manhole cover underneath, puts new boxes in, takes old boxes out,” he said. “And so, you ask yourself, Is that even possible?”

In his report, McBroom made clear that other conclusions were even simpler to reach.

What about dead voters? The committee reviewed a list of 200 deceased Wayne County residents who allegedly voted from the grave; it found two instances in which ballots were cast under those names, and both cases were clerical errors. (One man mistakenly voted under the identity of a dead relative who had the same name; one woman returned her absentee ballot, then died four days before the election.)

What about jurisdictions with more votes than registered voters? There were none to be found.

What about absentee ballots being counted multiple times? Nope—the poll books would have registered a disparity. (It’s not uncommon for poll books to be out of balance by a handful of votes; anything more would invite scrutiny and a recount that would invalidate ballots counted twice.)

What about tabulators being hacked with vote-switching software? Impossible, the report found, because the tabulators, no matter what Mike Lindell claims, were not connected to the internet to begin with.

While McBroom’s report crackled with annoyance at certain far-flung beliefs, he saved his saltiest language for the Antrim County saga. To recap: On the morning after Election Day, with all 16,044 votes in the county tallied, an unofficial count showed Biden leading Trump by 3,200 votes. The county clerk quickly determined that an inputting error was publishing the candidates’ totals in the wrong database fields; then, in the race to correct that mistake, officials made an additional inputting error. All of this was resolved within 24 hours, and the county’s updated totals reflected exactly what the tabulators had counted—a 3,800 vote lead for Trump. But this net swing of some 7,000 votes, and the underlying confusion about computer inputs, spawned a nationwide campaign to uncover codes in Dominion voting machines, like the ones used in Antrim County, that changed Trump votes to Biden votes.

The only problem? Dominion’s tabulators had counted the vote accurately, as confirmed by subsequent canvassing efforts and a hand recount. Human inputting error was responsible for the initial bad numbers, a fact obvious to everyone except those who stood to benefit from pretending otherwise. “All compelling theories that sprang forth from the rumors surrounding Antrim County are diminished so significantly as for it to be a complete waste of time to consider them further,” McBroom wrote in the report. “The Committee finds [that] those promoting Antrim County as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election place all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility.”

He didn’t stop there. Galvanized by the shameless grifting he’d encountered during the course of his investigation, McBroom stunned his GOP colleagues by referring to Michigan’s attorney general for possible prosecution “those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.”

This represented the one plot twist in McBroom’s report. (Some Democrats expressed surprise at McBroom’s recommending enhanced election-security policies, but most of his proposals are not new, and he has distanced himself from some of his party’s more restrictive new measures.) Concluding that the election wasn’t stolen is one thing. Suggesting that certain people who alleged a stolen election ought to be prosecuted—by a progressive attorney general who is loathed by the conservative base—is another thing entirely.

McBroom is aware of the risks. He will be accused of trying to silence conservatives, of censoring his own constituents, of punishing anyone who dares to question the legitimacy of the Biden administration and the U.S. elections system. But he makes no apologies. “Fraud is fraud,” he shrugged. “If they lied to people to make money off people, that’s a crime.”

I asked McBroom whether, under that standard, Trump—whose affiliated entities raised enormous sums of money under the guise of a legal strategy to overturn the election results—might be vulnerable to prosecution. He laughed nervously. “We didn’t investigate Trump. The report didn’t investigate him. So I have to stick to what the report says.”

Whatever the report says, its findings make evident that Trump, in concert with an unruly apparatus of right-wing personalities and causes, systematically tricked large portions of the American public into believing something that simply is not true. And yet, even while he recommends possible prosecutions, the urgency McBroom feels at this moment has less to do with going after bad actors and more to do with reaching “the good people who are buying this junk.” This includes people in his own district, friends and community members McBroom has known his entire life who refuse to accept what he is telling them.

“It’s been very discouraging, and very sad, to have people I know who have supported me, and always said they respected me and found me to be honest, who suddenly don’t trust me because of what some guy told them on the internet,” McBroom said. “And they’re like, ‘Yeah, but this is a good guy too.’ And I’m like, ‘How do you know that? Have you met him? You’ve met me. So why are you choosing to believe him instead of me?’”

After having kept quiet for much of the day—cooking, sweeping, applying Band-Aids, directing traffic, shooing the children outside to complete their chores—Sarah McBroom spoke up.

“That’s what has struck me. It’s seeing people that we know—some of them we know very well—who are choosing not to believe Ed, because they believe someone on Facebook they’ve never met,” she said. “I just don’t understand. Like, really? You believe that person over Ed?”

A little while earlier, when discussing the scourge of social media, Ed McBroom joked about quitting Facebook to keep his sanity. Then he rattled off the incoming fire he’s been dealing with daily—not just social-media posts and messages, but angry emails and texts from random numbers. Some people accuse him of being in league with Biden; others claim that China bought him off. Occasionally the screeds get nasty and downright threatening, though he said the most disturbing communications of that nature are delivered in middle-of-the-night phone calls. The senator knows that people can locate his farm easily enough, and worries about being gone so much during the week, leaving Sarah and Susan alone with the 13 children. (Both women, he noted, are trained and highly qualified to operate the collection of rifles that hung in a cabinet behind us.)

Still, whatever fleeting dread he feels about personal backlash is diminished by his concern for the country’s sudden epistemological crisis. Not long ago, McBroom said, he would have defaulted to dismissing any notions of mass societal irrationality. He is not dismissive anymore. He sees large portions of the voting public rejecting the basic tenets of civic education and sequestering into “this alternate world” of social media. He hears from constituents about “enemies” on the other side of political disputes and a looming civil conflict to resolve them. And he wonders, as an amateur historian, whether the “very real trouble” we’re in can be escaped.

“It’s easy to look at the current status of American culture, American politics, the American church, and be really apoplectic right now. It’s very easy to give in to that sense of panic,” McBroom told me. “But we go through different cycles in this country. I’m hoping we’re in a cycle of riots and demonstrations on and off, [and not] the cycle where we end up in civil war. I’ve encountered some folks who are like, ‘Maybe it’s time to rise up’—you know, ‘refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots,’ that stuff. And I say to them, ‘Are you seriously going to go looking for people with Biden signs in their yards? I mean, is that what you’re going to do? Make a list? Is this what this is coming to? You’re ready to go out and fight your neighbors? Because I don’t think you really are. I think you’re talking stupid.’”

McBroom closed his eyes and took a heavy breath. “These are good people, and they’re being lied to, and they’re believing the lies,” he said. “And it’s really dangerous.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...n-fraud/619326/

Slavery, segregation, if it walks like a duck, and looks like a duck.

Anthropogenic climate change is a thing, they deny it all.