President Joe Biden is hoping for a few legislative wins before the midterms. Three bills in particular seem to have a better-than-average chance of success. They're a far cry from the agenda Biden attempted to achieve last year, but having to deal with two corporatist Democratic senators derailed almost all of these lofty ambitions. So Americans will not be getting tuition-free community college, subsidized child care, free preschool, student loan forgiveness, action on climate change, and a whole host of other ideas that would have dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of American citizens. Thanks, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, for nothing.

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Today Representative Elaine Luria tweeted out what could be called a deleted scene from the video testimony presented at the most-recent House Select Committee hearing. This new video shows more of Donald Trump's edits to the speech that his aides prepared for him to give on January 7th, the day after the failed insurrection attempt. From the Washington Post report today:

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Initially, tonight's hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th was supposed to be the final hearing. That was before all the rest of the hearings caused so many other witnesses and tangential stories to come out of the woodwork. Nevertheless, it was indeed (as I wrote yesterday) the "season finale" of the summer miniseries of televised hearings. The committee is now promising to reconvene and hold more public hearings in September, to cover all the new information. The committee will stay busy during the August congressional break, digging into all the new evidence and witnesses who have come forward, and then they'll report back afterwards to the public. So there's all that to look forward to....

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I write this just before the start of the season finale of "House Select Committee Investigates January 6th" -- which I should mention is not actually the title of a television miniseries, as these hearings are not being presented for entertainment purposes. They are being presented for informational purposes, because every American deserves to know what happened before, during, and after that dark day in American history. They are hours-long extended public service announcements, in other words. Very sober proceedings exposing very serious crimes and misdemeanors -- including, tonight, dereliction of duty by the country's commander-in-chief.

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And so, once again, we find ourselves in a very familiar place. Senator Joe Manchin has just yanked the rug out from under the lion's share of what he was supposedly negotiating in good faith with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (and the entire rest of the Democratic Party). Manchin let it be known that two of the biggest things he himself had said he was going to strongly support (in the pared-down version of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan) were suddenly verboten and off the table. In other words, Joe Manchin successfully wasted everyone's time -- once again -- for months on end.

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After an extended break (which was interrupted by the unplanned sixth of these live hearings), the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th reconvened today for the seventh such hearing. Today's hearing centered around the violent rightwing militia groups that attacked the United States Capitol, and how they were encouraged to do so by Donald Trump.

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After a holiday break, the House Select Committee on January 6th will reconvene their public hearing schedule tomorrow, at 1:00 P.M. Eastern time. The only thing they've revealed (as of this writing) is that tomorrow's testimony will focus on the role played by right-wing militias such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and will also highlight Donald Trump's actions (and, more importantly, inaction) on January 6th. No witness lists have been made public yet, so we might have to wait until tomorrow to even know who will be there (although there is already plenty of in-depth media speculation about who could show up).

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There is a nationwide audience for the revelations that keeping coming forth from the House Select Committee on January 6th, but the most important audience these hearings really have is Attorney General Merrick Garland (and all the people in the Department of Justice who have also been investigating the insurrection attempt). What will Garland do when the hearings conclude and (a few months later) when the committee's final report is publicly issued?

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Donald Trump, when he was president, was mocked in many ways. The most amusing of all, though, was the giant balloon someone created of Trump caricatured as a baby, in diapers, clutching a cell phone in one of his tiny hands.

Today's hearing in front of the House Select Committee on January 6th proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what most observant people had already realized: Donald Trump was indeed nothing but a big baby. He is a man-child whose mental age seems stuck somewhere between two years old and perhaps five. He throws tantrums. He throws his own food. He cares about nothing but satisfying his own warped urges. His biggest concern on January 6th was that the crowd size of his rally looked impressive on television. He continually harps on this, speaking just this week about his crowd that day as (of course) the biggest, hugest crowd ever to assemble. It's all about Donald Trump's ego, and it always has been.

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Today saw the final June hearing of the House Select Committee on January 6th. Next week, Congress scarpers off on one of their many two-week holiday breaks, ostensibly for the July 4th holiday, so we won't be getting another of these hearings until the week of July 11th, at the earliest. But the committee does indeed plan to hold more public hearings, although they continue to hold their cards very close to the vest on exactly how many such hearings will take place, as well as the subject of any of the upcoming hearings. Perhaps this is done to build tension and interest among the public, or perhaps it is just because they are now reportedly being flooded with new information and new testimony, all offered up since the beginning of the public hearings earlier this month.

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