What Happened Today - 6 Jan 2026
What Happened Today – 6 January 2026
Five Years After the Insurrection
Maduro Drama
Trump’s Discussion with House GOP this morning – the lies he told…
Bravo Hilton!
Shadow Hearing on Jan 6th being held today
Roberts’ Quiet Warning
VETO on Colorado Water Bill
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Five Years After the Insurrection
January 6th is one of those days that ripped the mask off this country and showed exactly how fragile our so‑called “democracy” really is, and it’s honestly disgusting that the people who lit the match—especially Trump—are walking around free and back in power while the people they wound up like toys got turned into either martyrs or props.
That day wasn’t a “protest gone wrong”; it was a mob of Trump supporters trying to physically stop the peaceful transfer of power because their guy lost and couldn’t handle it. They stormed the Capitol while Congress was literally in the middle of certifying the election, smashed windows, beat cops, hunted elected officials, and forced lawmakers to run and hide in gas masks like we were some failed state. People died in the immediate aftermath, officers were brutalized and traumatized, and the world watched the country that loves to lecture everyone else on “law and order” get attacked from the inside by a crowd wrapped in flags and lies.
Historically, this sits right up there as a turning point: it was an outright attempt to overturn a legitimate election—an attempted coup, a domestic terror attack, and a straight‑up assault on the idea that votes actually matter. It came after weeks of Trump spewing lies about a stolen election and then standing at that rally telling them they had to “fight like hell,” and they took that literally and marched straight to the Capitol. Five years later, the gaslighting is so thick that a big chunk of the country now pretends it was just a “tour” or “patriots” who got a little rowdy, even though there are thousands of hours of video, hundreds of convictions, and a full investigation spelling out how coordinated and violent it actually was.
And yet Trump—the guy at the center of the whole thing—has not only avoided any real accountability, he’s back in the White House using the power of the presidency to clean up the mess for his people. On day one of his second term, he basically waved a magic wand and handed out mass clemency to almost everyone involved in Jan 6, roughly 1,500 people tied to the attack, including hardcore Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leadership who helped plan and drive the violence. The message is loud and clear: if you commit violence in his name, he’ll take care of you later, and the rule of law is just optional if you’re on his team.
The so‑called “J6’ers” he pardoned are not some misunderstood choir; a ton of them already had serious records, including rape, child sex crimes, weapons charges, manslaughter, and other violent offenses even before they ever set foot in D.C. on January 6. Post‑pardon, watchdog groups have already tracked at least dozens of these people getting in trouble again, with at least several rearrested or charged for new crimes ranging from threatening to murder elected officials, to violating protection orders, to burglary and more, all after Trump wiped their Jan 6 slates clean. One analysis found more than 30 pardoned insurrectionists facing other criminal cases since Jan 6, and at least four of them reoffended after receiving their pardons—exactly what you’d expect when you tell a bunch of extremists that consequences don’t apply to them.
So yeah, five years out, this day is significant because it marks the moment the system got stress‑tested by an authoritarian cult, and instead of slamming the door on it forever, the country turned around and reinstalled the ringleader. The people who beat cops with flagpoles and tried to overturn millions of votes got a get‑out‑of‑jail card, while the man who incited them with lies is now using the power of the presidency to rewrite the narrative and erase the record. That’s why today feels less like “Never Again” and more like “Of course they got away with it”—and that’s exactly what makes January 6th not just awful in the past tense, but dangerous in the present.
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Maduro Drama
Maduro’s arraignment yesterday looked less like a fall from power and more like a man settling into a new role on a very public stage. He and Cilia stroll into Manhattan federal court, both pleading not guilty to narco‑terror and drug trafficking charges, and he’s still out here calling himself the legitimate president of Venezuela and claiming he was “kidnapped” by the U.S. instead of arrested. And you could not miss how weirdly comfortable he seemed in all of it: multiple outfit changes like it’s a press tour, not an arraignment; polished, composed, talking to the cameras like this is just another political appearance. Then he caps it off with this super casual “Happy New Year, good night,” like he and his wife are heading back to a hotel suite to order room service instead of a cell to wait on federal charges. For someone facing decades in a U.S. courtroom, he’s playing it like a man who expects comfort, attention, and an audience, not consequences.
Legally, this case is huge and messy, and there are real question marks around it. The charges themselves—narco‑terrorism, importing cocaine into the U.S., weapons tied to drug trafficking, plus reported money‑laundering—are serious and prosecutors say they have cooperating witnesses and a paper trail to back it up. But the way he was grabbed—U.S. military operation on Venezuelan soil—and his status as a former (and disputed) head of state open the door to big fights over jurisdiction, immunity, and international law that could drag this out for years before a jury ever hears the full story. Experts say the “kidnapped” argument probably won’t kill the case in U.S. courts because of precedent that basically says how you got here doesn’t erase the charges, but head‑of‑state immunity and whether the U.S. legally recognizes him as president could be a real obstacle the judge has to untangle.
So what happens next? Expect his lawyers to go hard on motions: challenging jurisdiction, claiming he can’t be tried as a head of state, saying the U.S. violated international law, and trying to slow‑walk everything. The judge has already signaled he’s not going to let this turn into a political circus in the courtroom, which helps the prosecution, but nobody’s pretending this will be quick—people are talking about 2027 or later before a full trial, if it even gets that far. In the meantime, Maduro sits in U.S. custody, using every camera and every court appearance to sell the image of “wronged president” instead of accused cartel partner.
On top of that, the Venezuela drama is now fully entangled with Trump’s ego and the split inside the Venezuelan opposition. Trump has effectively picked Maduro’s longtime vice president Delcy Rodríguez—one of the regime’s hardest‑line figures—as the interim leader he’ll “work with,” even while she publicly defends Maduro and calls his capture a “kidnapping” and an attack on Venezuelan sovereignty. Meanwhile, María Corina Machado, the opposition leader who helped drive the 2024 election that many see as stolen and who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, is calling for Edmundo González—the man widely seen as the real winner—to be recognized as Venezuela’ s true president.
The wild twist: Machado has been flattering Trump nonstop, even dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize “to” him and saying she wants to share it with him, because she sees him as the one who finally forced Maduro out. But Trump still sidelined her politically and chose to legitimize Rodríguez instead, even as Machado and her camp say Rodríguez is corrupt, tied to repression and narco‑trafficking, and absolutely not someone Venezuelans trust to lead a real transition. So while Maduro is putting on his calm, TV‑ready defendant act in New York, the future of Venezuela is being fought over between a U.S. president who wants control, a Nobel‑winning opposition leader trying to turn that prize into leverage, and a regime insider trying to survive this mess without becoming the next one on a U.S. indictment.
The U.N. emergency meeting yesterday just layered even more drama on top of all this. U.S. allies and a chunk of the Global South lined up to blast Trump’s military strike and capture operation as a violation of international law, even while many of them agree Maduro has a record of human‑rights abuses and corruption. Washington is trying to sell this as a necessary move against a “narco‑terrorist” regime and is now pushing for a U.N. process to bless some kind of transition plan built around Rodríguez, which a lot of countries are deeply skeptical of. What to expect next at the U.N.: more public shaming of the U.S. for the way Maduro was taken, more behind‑the‑scenes bargaining over sanctions and recognition, and a big, unresolved fight over whether this ends up reinforcing international justice—or just rewriting the rules to fit Trump’s version of regime change.
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Trump’s Discussion with House GOP this morning – the lies he told…
Trump’s closed-door with House Republicans this morning was the usual firehose of nonsense, all wrapped in “unity” language that’s completely detached from reality. Here are the big lies and why they’re lies.
“The economy has never been stronger”
• He bragged that under his “return,” the economy is the strongest it’s ever been and that his policies instantly “fixed Biden’s mess.”
• In reality, inflation had already been cooling before he came back in, the Fed is still doing the heavy lifting, and markets have been jittery over his Venezuela adventure, trade threats, and talk of weaponizing tariffs.
• Wages and affordability are still a mess for a lot of families, and Republicans themselves are meeting this week because health care and cost of living are political liabilities, not solved problems.
“We secured the border like never before”
• He claimed the border is now “more secure than at any time in American history” because of his policies and that migrants “stopped coming” once he took office again.
• DHS data and independent reporting show migrant flows are still high and enforcement is chaotic, with legal challenges, humanitarian crises, and continued surges at different points of the border; nothing like the “shut down” he describes.
• His own party is still using the border as a campaign wedge, which they wouldn’t be doing if things were actually “fixed.”
“January 6 was peaceful / they were patriots”
• On the fifth anniversary of Jan 6, he repeated the lie that it was a “peaceful protest,” that most people were “invited in,” and that the real violence was exaggerated or fabricated by his enemies.
• Every investigation, from DOJ to the Jan 6 committee to independent media, documents violence, assaults on police, forced entry, and a clear attempt to stop the certification of the election—nothing about that is “peaceful.”
• He also continues to frame convicted rioters as “hostages” and “heroes,” even though hundreds have pleaded guilty or been convicted on charges ranging from obstruction to assault and seditious conspiracy.
“The election system is totally rigged against us”
• He told House Republicans they only win when they “overwhelm the rigging,” pushing the lie that mail voting and machines are inherently corrupt and that Democrats are “stealing every close race.”
• Dozens of courts, Republican state officials, and Trump’s own appointees have rejected these claims over and over; there is no evidence of the kind of massive fraud he keeps describing.
• At the same time, his team is actively backing gerrymandering, voter roll purges, and attacks on mail ballots in red states—the real, documented manipulation of elections is coming from his side.
“We’re the ones defending democracy and the Constitution”
• He told them Republicans are “the only ones standing up for the Constitution” and painted investigations, court cases, and criticism as “illegal persecution” and “election interference.”
• The record shows the opposite: he tried to overturn a lawful election, pressured state officials and the DOJ to change results, and encouraged fake electors and Pence pressure schemes, all documented in testimony and transcripts.
• Calling accountability “persecution” doesn’t make it true; it just shows he still believes laws are something that only apply to other people.
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Bravo Hilton!
Hilton just accidentally became the main character in the immigration fight, and honestly, from an ICE‑accountability perspective, it’s hard not to call this a win.
Here’s what went down: a Hampton Inn by Hilton in the Minneapolis area emailed ICE agents and flat‑out said they had “noticed an influx of GOV reservations…for DHS, and we are not allowing any ICE or immigration agents to stay at our property,” then canceled their bookings. DHS ran to X screaming “NO ROOM AT THE INN!” and accused Hilton of a “coordinated campaign” to deny law enforcement housing and “side with criminals,” which set off a full MAGA meltdown and calls to boycott Hilton.
Hilton corporate, of course, tried to walk it back, saying the hotel is independently owned, the email “does not reflect Hilton values,” and that they welcome everyone, including law enforcement. But the fact remains: at least one Hilton‑branded property saw ICE rolling into town for a big crackdown and decided, on its own, “yeah, we’re not doing this,” and canceled their rooms. DHS is furious, MAGA is screaming boycott, and the hotel’s management company is scrambling with apologies—but the message that slipped out is loud and clear: some people, even inside big corporate brands, do not want to be part of ICE’s machinery of raids, detentions, and family separation.
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Shadow Hearing on Jan 6th being held today
House Democrats are basically holding a shadow Jan. 6 hearing today because the people in charge of the House would rather memory‑hole that day than deal with it. They can’t run an official committee anymore, so they pulled the old Jan. 6 team back together and are taking testimony from Capitol Police, former staffers, and regular folks who lived through the chaos to lay out, again, what actually happened and how deep Trump’s role ran in trying to overturn the election. This matters because Trump is back in power, he’s pardoned a massive number of Jan. 6 defendants, and he’s working overtime to flip the script—turning a violent attack on the Capitol into some fake story about “patriots” and “hostages.” Democrats are using this forum to keep the real record alive: people were terrorized, cops were nearly beaten to death, and none of it happens without Trump’s lies and pressure campaign. With Republicans running their own spin and trying to reframe it all as “security errors” or partisan drama, this shadow hearing is basically the last space inside Congress where anyone is still saying out loud that Jan. 6 was an attack on democracy, and that the threat didn’t end when the tear gas cleared.
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Roberts’ Quiet Warning
Chief Justice Roberts’ year-end report is basically the Chief Justice standing on the courthouse steps saying, “The system is still here, please don’t burn it down,” while pointedly refusing to say Trump’s name.
In this latest report, Roberts leans hard into history—Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence, the founders’ fear of kings controlling judges—and uses that to make one big point: the federal courts are supposed to be an independent check on political power, even when that power is loud, angry, and popular. He calls the Constitution and the Declaration “firm and unshaken,” quotes Calvin Coolidge about finding comfort in those documents during partisan chaos, and reminds judges that their job is to do “equal right to the poor and to the rich” and decide cases faithfully and impartially under the law.
What makes this important right now is the context he’s not spelling out: this is a court that has been hammered for how often it’s sided with Trump’s power grabs and emergency requests, and it’s operating in a climate where Trump and his allies bash judges, float ignoring rulings they don’t like, and talk openly about using the government to punish enemies. Roberts is dodging the direct fights—he doesn’t name Trump, doesn’t touch ethics scandals, doesn’t mention specific cases—but between the lines he’s clearly worried about politicians encouraging people to see judges as partisan hacks instead of referees, and about what happens if the public stops believing courts are legitimate at all.
So why pay attention? Because this is the highest judicial voice in the country quietly warning that the rule of law only holds if (1) judges actually act like neutral judges and (2) the political branches don’t convince everyone to ignore them when they don’t like the outcome. Coming into a year where this Court will likely decide massive questions about Trump’s power, immigration, tariffs, elections, and more, Roberts is trying to pre‑sell the idea that, whatever they do, it’s grounded in the Constitution—not in fear of or loyalty to whoever is sitting in the Oval Office.
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Veto on Colorado Water Bill
Trump’s veto of Colorado’s clean water bill is straight-up revenge politics dressed up as “fiscal responsibility,” and Colorado is paying the price because he didn’t get his way on Tina Peters.
The bill he killed — the “Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act” — had unanimous bipartisan support and was designed to finally complete a long-promised pipeline bringing safe drinking water from Pueblo Reservoir to rural communities on the Eastern Plains, where groundwater is full of contaminants and basically not safe to drink. It was backed by Democrats like Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper and even hard-right Republicans like Lauren Boebert, whose own district would benefit, which tells you how non-controversial and badly needed this project was.
Trump’s public excuse was the usual “taxpayer handouts” and “fiscal sanity” talking points, claiming he doesn’t want federal taxpayers on the hook for more spending. But he’s been telegraphing the real motive for months: he is furious that Colorado refused to spring his ally Tina Peters — the former Mesa County clerk convicted in state court for breaching voting machines to chase his stolen-election fantasies — and he’s been openly threatening “harsh measures” against the state if she isn’t freed. Since he can’t undo a state conviction with a federal pardon, he’s doing the next best thing in his mind: punishing Colorado’s government and, by extension, its people.
Colorado leaders are saying the quiet part out loud. Bennet called it a “revenge tour,” Hickenlooper accused him of making rural communities suffer to settle personal scores, and even Boebert — normally a reliable Trump cheerleader — blasted the veto as denying clean drinking water to about 50,000 of his own voters in southeast Colorado. Local coverage and national outlets have tied this veto directly to the pattern: disaster aid denials, rolling back federal projects, freezing funds, and now killing a water pipeline, all coming after Trump ranted that Governor Polis and Mesa County DA Dan Rubinstein should “rot in Hell” for keeping Peters in prison.
As for what happens next, Colorado’s delegation is talking about an override, but that’s an uphill climb with Trump still effectively running the GOP’s spine. The broader fear is exactly what you’re pointing at: if this stands, it sends a message that even bipartisan infrastructure and clean-water bills are only safe until Trump feels disrespected — then they become weapons.
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So…that’s already quite a bit of information, if anything else crazy pops up today—I’ll attempt to get it out. Hang in there everyone.
Speak Truth! Keep speaking TRUTH!
Don’t Give up the Ship!
Go Cause Good Trouble, with Your Elbows Up!
These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.