Seeing Things – January 6th Is Still Happening In Real Time – Liza Donnelly

I’m serious today because this is deadly serious, January 6th Is Still Happening In Real Time

By Liza Donnelly, Jan 06, 2026

Above is drawing I did as I watched the insurrection unfold on television on January 6th, 2020. It was terrifying.

Later that day, during a live broadcast, I did the above on paper, from memory, live on Instagram. Police officer Eugene Goodman was the man who stopped insurrectionists from further entering the depths of the Capital; I remember watching him, in awe, and was so moved by his bravery. He may have single handedly saved the lives of some Senators, Congress people and Vice President Mike Pence.

For some years after that horrific violent coup attempt, we were hopeful that it was an isolated event. But as I began to see how Trump continue his election-denying, and more and more people were willing to lie about it and join his side, it was clear to me that we were in big trouble. I saw that what was going to happen was that Trump and anyone who attached themselves to him with these lies, was going to try to affect a coup from within the government. Then he was re-elected on more lies, swindling his followers into thinking he was all for them.

We are living a slow, internal coup right now. Vote in ALL elections, protest and call your reps.

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has vowed to return to the country as soon as possible and she rejected the authority of the interim president backed by the US after it forcibly removed Maduro. She wants to return and hold elections.

Many people in Venezuela expected her to return as the leader of the country after Maduro was captured. Today, Machado publicly praised Trump for capturing Maduro, who was an illegitimate leader of the country following the previous elections which he lost. But Trump sidelined Machado as a potential leader, saying she has no support in her country; a flat out lie. She is hugely popular. Some are suggesting that because Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year (for her opposition work against Maduro), and Trump desperately wanted to get it, that his ego will not let her return to the country. Trump wants to run Venezuela, and hopes to threaten those in power now to do what he wants. He probably thinks that Machado is not someone he can trust to do his bidding.

There was a briefing yesterday for the Congressional Gang of Four about the Venezuela military action. It left members with more questions, and we don’t know yet what those opposed to Trump’s warmongering will do.

“This business of coming over and just talking to some of us, I think is a special kind of stupid,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview Monday. “They need to sit down with every member of the Senate and explain what’s going on.”

As that briefing was going on, Trump advisor Stephen Miller was on CNN in an interview was at times very contentious, Miller yelling at Tapper, and saying some outrageous things. The premise of his comments were that the United States has the right, because of the fact that we are a superpower, to take over countries in the Western Hemisphere for our security. Power over diplomacy.

Below is a clip that will show you, as well as the full exchange. Miller stated that we have “a right to Greenland.” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark urged Mr. Trump on Sunday to “stop the threats” to annex Greenland, in effect attacking a NATO ally.

Miller:

“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

“We set the terms and conditions,” Mr. Miller said. “We have a complete embargo on all of their oil and their ability to do commerce. So for them to do commerce, they need our permission. For them to be able to run an economy, they need our permission. So the United States is in charge. The United States is running the country.”

“The future of the free world depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology. This whole period that happened after World War II when the United States began apologizing, groveling and begging…” then Jake Tapper cut him off saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re looking at it the wrong way Jake. This neoliberalism idea that the United states should go around the world demanding elections everywhere!”

This is imperialism.

https://www.tiktok.com/@cnn/video/7592063639100624141?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Here’s the whole interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLFkQbPWWDI

Source: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kLFkQbPWWDI?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

The Pentagon moved to punish retired Navy captain and Senator Mark Kelly for an “anti-Trump video” he was a part of (it was not anti-Trump), calling it “seditious behavior.” They want to cut his military pay of $6000/month.

“Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way,” Kelly said. “It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that.”

Here is the video: https://youtube.com/shorts/Fk9Gh3qwW4I?si=QlMPl9Xraza6tytc

I’ll end with one more thing about January 6th. Today on Capitol Hill, Pamela Hempel spoke at a hearing that Democrats held to mark the 5th anniversary of January 6th. She was one of the 1600 insurrectionists who were pardoned by Trump, but she refused the pardon and served time in prison.

A post shared by C-SPAN (@cspan)

Direct link to above: View this post on Instagram, A post shared by C-SPAN (@cspan) … C-SPAN on Instagram: “Pamela Hemphill, a Jan. 6 participant who…

She said at the hearing today:

“Once I got away from the Maga cult and started educating myself about January 6th, I knew what I did was wrong. I am guilty and I own that guilt I had fallen for the president’s lies.”

A remarkable woman of conscience. I wish we had some like her among congressional Republicans, then we could end this madness.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: January 6th Is Still Happening In Real Time

Letters from an American – January 5, 2026 (Monday) – Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American, January 5, 2026 (Monday)

By Heather Cox Richardson, Jan 05, 2026

Five years ago, on January 6, 2021, more than 2,000 rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the process of counting the electoral votes that would make Democrat Joe Biden president of the United States. They tried to hunt down House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and chanted their intention to “Hang Mike Pence,” the vice president. They fantasized that they were following in the footsteps of the American Founders, about to start a new nation. Newly elected representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) wrote on January 5, 2021: “Remember these next 48 hours. These are some of the most important days in American history.” On January 6 she wrote: “Today is 1776.”

In fact, it was not 1776 but 1861, the year insurrectionists who had tried to overthrow the government in order to establish minority rule tried to break the U.S. The rioters wanted to take away the right at the center of American democracy—our right to determine our own destiny—in order to keep Donald J. Trump in the White House, making sure the power of elite white men could not be challenged. It was no accident that the rioters carried a Confederate battle flag.

Since the 1980s, Republicans pushed the idea that a popular government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights crushes the individualism on which America depends. As cuts to regulation, taxation, and the nation’s social safety net began to hollow out the middle class, Republicans pushed the idea that the country’s problems came from greedy minorities and women who wanted to work outside the home. More and more, they insisted that the federal government was stealing tax dollars and destroying society, and they encouraged individual men to take charge of the country.

After the Democrats passed the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, more commonly known as the motor voter law, enabling people to register to vote at motor vehicle departments, Republicans increasingly insisted Democrats were cheating the system by relying on the votes of noncitizens, although there was never any evidence for this charge.

As wealth continued to move upward, the idea that individuals and paramilitary groups must “reclaim” America from undeserving Americans who were taking tax dollars and cheating to win elections became embedded in the Republican Party. By 2014, Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) called Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters “patriots” when they showed up armed to meet officials from the Bureau of Land Management who tried to impound Bundy’s cattle because he owed more than $1 million in grazing fees for running cattle on public land.

The idea of reclaiming the country for white men by destroying the federal government grew, along with the idea that Democrats could win elections only by cheating. In 2016, Trump insisted that his female Democratic opponent belonged in jail and that he alone could save the country from the Washington, D.C., “swamp.” Other Republican leaders who had initially shunned him began to support him when it became clear that he could mobilize a new crop of disaffected voters who could put Republicans into office.

And they continued to support him, claiming initially that he could be kept in check by establishment Republicans like his first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who moved from leading the Republican National Committee to the White House for the first six months of Trump’s first term. In his first months in office, Trump delivered the tax cut Republican leaders wanted, as well as the appointment of one out of every four federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices, who would protect the Republican project in the courts.

But the idea that Trump could be kept in check fell apart in September 2019, when it appeared he was trying to rig the 2020 election. A whistleblower revealed that Trump had called the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in July 2019 to demand that Zelensky smear former vice president Joe Biden, who was beating Trump in most polls going into the 2020 election season. Until Zelensky did so, Trump said, the administration would not release the money Congress had appropriated to fund Ukraine’s fight against Russia, which had invaded Ukraine in 2014.

The attempt to withhold congressionally appropriated funds in order to tilt an election was a glaring violation of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act codifying the executive branch’s duty to execute the laws Congress passed. In the congressional investigation that followed, witnesses revealed that Trump’s cronies were running a secret scheme in Ukraine to undermine official U.S. policy and benefit Trump’s allies.

Republicans in 1974 had turned against President Richard Nixon for far less, but although Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said not a single Republican senator believed Trump, they stood behind him nonetheless. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told his colleagues: “This is not about this president. It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing…. It’s about flipping the Senate.”

But once acquitted, Trump cut loose from any oversight. He sought revenge and insisted that “[w]hen somebody is President of the United States, the authority is total.” “The federal government has absolute power,” he said, and he had the “absolute right” to use that power if he wanted to.

As early as 2019, Trump had “joked” about staying in power regardless of the 2020 election results, and on October 31, Trump’s ally Steve Bannon told a private audience that Trump was going to declare that he had won the 2020 election no matter what. Trump knew that Democratic mail-in ballots would show up in the vote totals later than Republican votes cast on Election Day, creating a “red mirage” that would be overtaken later by Democratic votes.

“Trump’s going to take advantage of it,” Bannon said, by calling the election early and saying that the later votes were somehow illegitimate. “That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner.” Bannon continued: “Here’s the thing. After then, Trump never has to go to a voter again…. He’s gonna say ‘F*ck you. How about that?’ Because…he’s done his last election.”

Early returns on Election Night 2020, November 3, showed Trump ahead. But, more quickly than anyone expected, Democratic votes turned the key state of Arizona blue, and the Fox News Channel called the race for Biden. Furious, Trump took to the airwaves at about 2:30 the next morning and declared he had won, although ballots were still being counted and several battleground states had no clear winner. “We won’t stand for this,” he told supporters, assuring them he had won. “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop.”

Continue/Read Original Article Here: January 5, 2026 (Monday) – by Heather Cox Richardson

🎵 #HangMikePence 🎵
We can't talk and have the words make sense
We can't reason 'cause our brain's too dense
But we can fight our Capitol's defense
Chase the VP and cry "Hang Mike Pence!"

Rudy Giuliani, Sean Hannity, and Trump want to hang Mike Pence

Vice Pres. JD Vance wrote: "I wonder if any other vice president had as much excitement as I do."

Rep. Thomas Massie replied: "Ask Mike Pence about his excitement on #January6th." #HangMikePence

If you choose fascism over freedom you are garbage.

If you happen to be born in Puerto Rico you are an American.

If you hate Latinos because they are Latinos you are garbage.

The only way to make America great is to stop tolerating fascist scum.

#Fascist #Thug #J6 #HangMikePence #HeatherHeyer #POS #ConvictedFelonDon #Trump #Criminal #USpol #USpolitics #AmericanFascism #Pence #VP #Garbage

Trump supporters murdered Heather Heyer. They are garbage.

Trump supporters attacked the Capitol chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" They are garbage.

#Fascist #Thug #J6 #HangMikePence #HeatherHeyer #POS #ConvictedFelonDon #Trump #Criminal #USpol #USpolitics #AmericanFascism #Pence #VP #Garbage