Thumbtack Observations on Today's Hearings

     Since I don't own a TV, I have to depend on video clips to follow what's going on at Capitol Hill today with the January 6 committee. This is just day one and these hearings could easily stretch into months. Committee members have just startied hearing opening statements and testimony from four of the officers who were brutalized that day.

     Later on, I'm sure, names other than Trump's will come out. I don't have any reasonable expectations that the hearings will result in any expulsions but I'm convinced that we'll see a few resignations and they'll all be Republican.

     Seeing this committee in action is a mixed blessing. We're seeing new videos of the riots that are harrowing, to say the least, and hearing first person accounts of the officers who were the primary victims of the violence. We've heard cops and Congressmen alike choke up today and we've been forced to confront just how ugly half our country is. Watching the testimony is heart-wrenching and it's a grim duty.

     Yet, thanks to Speaker Pelosi, it's also heartening to see this master class in Civics, this example of government the way it's supposed to work. It's not a bipartisan committee but a nonpartisan one. There are no bomb throwers, no spin doctors, no terrorist apologists, no political battle lines. There's just a group of Congressmen who want to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6, why and how we can stop this from happening ever again.