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MEK comment:  Did we miraculously avoid a Trump Dictatorship, a violent Civil War and an end to the America as we have known it? 

While the corporate accounts of the January 6, 2021 insurrection basically skirt the role President Trump had in orchestrating the insurrection,  the alternative media accounts below present information and opinion that put Trump’s massive role more in focus! 

For two months Trump had incessantly claimed that he had won the 2020 Presidential election.  Trump claimed massive fraud was the reason Biden had been able to steal the presidential election, despite never being able to provide any supportive evidence to the contrary!  For weeks Trump called for a massive “stop the steal” rally on January 6. Trump used his many shell corporations to secretly fund the rally!   Trump used recent former $6 figure members of his staff to organize the “Stop the Steal” rally with all its incitement speakers and to help collude with militant groups and some Congressional officials.   Trump replaced the Secretary of Defense and reorganized the Military top brass.  It was leaders of the Pentagon who were instrumental in keeping the National Guard  away from Congress until the failed insurrection was basically over!  Trump and other rally speakers deliberately incited the large crowd,  perhaps 10K+ in size, into an irrational hatred furor and then sent them all to Congress with his approval to “Stop the Steal”.  Members of the militant groups would lead the way in attacking and neutralizing the relatively small police force guarding the Capital.   Trump who watched the whole insurrection on TV, refused to intervene even rejecting  House Minority Leader McCarthy plea for help to call off the insurrectionists early in the attack.

Success of the insurrection would have required the death of a number of Democratic House  and Senate members, such that both legislative bodies would have effectively reverted to Republican control in the aftermath.  If the insurrection had been successful, Trump would have been able to declare a National State of Emergency and seize control of our government, military, media, and society.   The new Republican controlled House & Senate legislatures would have supported Trump and any actions he would have taken!  Nearly half the population would have been blindly behind Trump, so happy that the Democratic Party’s socialists, communists, and traitors had been defeated and that America had been saved!  For certain the election of Biden would have been declared null & void due to “the massive election fraud”! America would have been under a Trump dictatorship!

So, is the insurrection threat over or merely delayed?

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Chronological history of alternative news & opinion of the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

2021-03-09 Post-Insurrection Crackdown On Criminal Extremists Is Gathering Force     f there has been a silver lining in the January 6 insurrection, it would be this: Law enforcement officials finally appear to be taking far-right extremist criminal behavior seriously. That’s become abundantly clear in the wave of arrests of multiple extremists in the weeks following, not all of whom are connected to the attack on the Capitol.

The past week has been especially eventful: A live-streaming white supremacist fond of threatening strangers online was arrested in Florida on a weapons charge. A member of the Proud Boys was arrested in Philadelphia for harassing a community organizer. And even more Capitol insurgents were placed under arrest, including a former State Department aide and Donald Trump appointee.   

Last Tuesday’s arrest of notorious far-right troll Paul N. Miller, 32, who goes by the online moniker “Gypsy Crusader,” in Fort Lauderdale was predicated on a single charge—being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, based on a grand jury indictment. But that indictment resulted from Miller’s practice of harassing people with racist epithets while dressed in costume—and often holding a gun in the video.

Another man associated with Proud Boys harassment, Kyle Boell, 40, of Philadelphia, was arrested Thursday and charged with harassing far-right researcher Gwen Snyder on Twitter. Prosecutors say Boell sent dozens of vulgar and threatening social media messages to the victim in November 2020. 

2021-03-06 FBI Probing Contacts Between GOP Members And Capitol Rioters     This explosion of violence may have appeared chaotic and overwhelming to the police, but it clearly did not happen without planning. And as CNN reports, some of that planning may have been coordinated by the people who police were literally dying to protect. During the investigations of Jan. 6 that have been launched in Congress, a number of Republicans—most notably senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz—have repeatedly expressed concern about the idea of the FBI looking into phone records of those in Congress. Hawley in particular has fumed about this “violation of privacy” in multiple hearings.  He may have good reason to be concerned. Because it appears that investigators are, in fact, checking out communications between members of Congress and some of the 300 people who have already been charged with crimes related to the insurgency. Some of this seems to be records showing that criminal insurgents claimed to be working in coordination with members of Congress.

Investigators are not just looking at communications that took place on January 6, but contacts between officials and the attackers over the period leading up to the insurgency. That might finally produce some information about the large tour that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) gave in the days just before the assault.   Those investigators might also want to take a look at the 2,000 page report compiled by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D_CA) that looks at the social media of her Republican colleagues over the weeks leading up to January 6.

Investigators are also looking into the funding of the extremists who attacked the Capitol. While Republicans frequently make false claims about “antifa buses” and Black protesters being sent to locations by a Jewish billionaire, the truth is that numerous militia groups really did meet up at a series of locations and coordinate their arrival in D.C. And it seems entirely possible that those operations were funded by Republican donors, just as the tea party protests were a decade earlier.   

2021-03-05 Trump aide with top secret clearance beat officers with riot shield at Jan. 6 Insurrection: report    State Dept. aide, Federico Klein, appointed by Trump in 2017 after working on the Trump campaign, was arrested by the FBI in connection with the deadly January 6 insurrection.   Klein, 42, previously worked as a researcher for the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, according to Politico. That group’s president, a close informal religious advisor to President Donald Trump, was appointed to the the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He served as chairman and later vice chair.  Klein resigned from the U.S. State Dept. on January 19.    

2021-03-04 National Guard Chief: Pentagon Brass Delayed Critical Deployment On Jan. 6    Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commander of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., delivered disturbing new testimony on Wednesday about the delay in deployment of his forces during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.   Walker was prepared to send a large number of troops to the Capitol immediately at 1:49 p.m. when he received a “frantic” call for backup from then-Chief of the Capitol Police Steven Sund.  

But scattered reports indicated that there was an unexplained delay in their deployment, raising the disturbing prospect that political influence was responsible for denying Congress necessary protection.   “It required me to seek authorization from the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense to essentially protect my guardsmen,” he said. In an “unusual memo,” he said, “the Secretary of Defense, told me I needed his permission to escalate to have that kind of protection.” During the previous summer’s racial justice protests, Walker said, he had been able to get immediate approval to activate his forces.

It wasn’t until 5:09 p.m., Walker said, that he was given permission to act. In less than 20 minutes, the National Guard arrived at the Capitol, where more than 100 officers had reportedly been injured.    Walker said that Army Gen. Charles Flynn, the brother of disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who advised Trump in his plots to overturn the 2020 election, was on the call and had pushed back against approving the request for the National Guard. The Army had initially denied that Flynn was on the call.       

2021-03-03 GOP Members Linked To Group Suspected Of Plotting New Assault On Capitol      One extremist group being monitored by intelligence agencies over increased chatter is the Three Percenters, a militia group that opposes efforts at gun safety reform. Their name is a reference to the historically false claim that only three percent of American colonists during the Revolutionary War took up arms against the British.   Multiple members of the Three Percenters have been charged by the FBI for allegedly taking part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Three recently elected Republican members of the House have had affiliations with the group.

Illinois state Rep. Chris Miller, who is married to Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), was seen with a Three Percenter decal on his truck, which was on the grounds of the Capitol during the January 6 attack.    In Dec. 2019, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) posed for a photo with gun rights activists, who made hand gestures in the photo associated with the Three Percenters.   Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) referenced “the Three Percenter guys” in a 2019 video and praised them as “true Second Amendment supporters” and described herself as clapping for them at an event.  

2021-03-04 CBS News Slammed For ‘Complicit’ Interview With QAnon Rioter     Should Americans hear from an individual in jail facing felony charges related to their alleged participation in the January 6 insurrection, especially on the day terrorism experts say the QAnon cult might again engage in violence so dangerous the House has postponed business for the day?   Some are saying no, and blasting CBS News for promoting its jailhouse interview today with one of the most recognizable faces from the insurrection, Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman.” 

2021-03-03 New Report Details Terror Threat From ‘Plethora’ Of Right-Wing Extremists      George Washington University’s Program on Extremism compiled data from all 257 cases and assembled a detailed analysis of the event based largely on information from the court filings. The details contained therein are telling and important, but its broader conclusion—namely, that the universe of domestic right-wing extremists who came together on January 6 has grown massive, is constantly expanding, and now poses a greater threat to American society than overseas jihadists—may be the most significant takeaway.    

2021-03-01 Capitol Riot Conspirator Renounces Oath Keepers, Still Denied Bail      One of their leaders, former Army Ranger Jessica Watkins, figured prominently in filings by prosecutors about just how far these domestic terrorists—and yes, these are terrorists—were willing to go. According to prosecutors, Watkins believed she came to Washington on Trump’s direct orders.  However, in a remarkable turnabout, late Friday she publicly renounced the Oath Keepers and denounced the insurrection.   

But Judge Mehta didn’t buy it.    “I’ve thought about this quite hard, Miss Watkins,” the judge said. “You are an active participant, organizer, leader of others in engaging in this kind of conduct. The material found at your home certainly suggests further potential for organizing and further potential for violence.”   That “material” included a stash of weapons and tactical gear, as well as “a recipe for making a destructive device.” Mehta added that her previous desire to, as he put it, “fight, kill, and die over the result of this election” belied her claims to have not taken part in any violence on that horrible day. 

2021-02-27 Boogaloo Boys Arrested for “Inciting Riot” in Louisville on Day of Capitol Attack     Tina-Desiree Berg speaks with Dave Anthony, co-host of “The Dollop” podcast, about the arrest of multiple individuals associated with the Boogaloo Boys.     

2021-02-26  Violence-Prone Capitol Rioter Harassed Omar And Tlaib With Greene In 2019    CNN recently reported that conservative live streamer and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ally Anthony Aguero, who has a history of violence, recently admitted that he entered the Capitol as part of the deadly January 6 insurrection attempt. Aguero previously went to the Capitol with Greene in February 2019, where they attempted to harass Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for being Muslim.   Before getting elected, Greene was a right-wing commentator who frequently encouraged violence against members of Congress and pushed dangerous conspiracy theories. She has repeatedly targeted Muslims, including Omar and Tlaib.

2021-02-26 Police Official Testifies Right-Wing ‘Militias’ Want To ‘Blow Up’ U.S. Capitol      Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman revealed disturbing details about multiple right-wing militias that participated in U.S. Capitol riots on January 6. Not only were they contemplating harming lawmakers but, according to Pittman, intelligence indicates that there were also plans to “blow up” the U.S. Capitol amid the State of the Union.   On Thursday, February 25, Pittman delivered her testimony during a hearing with a House Appropriations subcommittee. “We know that members of the militia groups that were present on January 6 have stated their desire that they want to blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible, with a direct nexus to the State of the Union,” Pittman said during her testimony.

2021-02-25 Republicans Are Trying to Make the January 6 Disgrace Go Away    They acquitted Trump. Now they’re trying to spike a 9/11-style commission to learn what happened. Democrats can’t let them.    

2021-02-25 Congress Debates Bipartisan Commission To Investigate Capitol Attack      Jordan Tama, an associate professor at American University’s School of International Service, has studied independent commissions going well beyond the 9/11 Commission. At Just Security, he writes that two factors are key to a successful commission: its credibility, and a carefully defined scope for investigation. Too narrow a scope, and the investigation doesn’t get to the root causes of its subject. Too broad, and it can lose focus.

In this case, Tama argues, the scope of the investigation “should include examining how the attack was planned and carried out; the roles and motivations of extremist groups that were involved in it; the use of social media and other digital communications to facilitate it; how and to what extent political leaders inspired or contributed to it; whether foreign governments contributed to it; and what federal, state, and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies knew, did, and failed to do.” 

2021-02-24 Woman Accused of Stealing Nancy Pelosi’s Laptop Appears in Video Making Nazi Salute   While many engaged in property damage and violence that day, Williams’ case stands out given her ex-partner has alleged to the FBI that she stole a laptop from Nancy Pelosi’s office.   This former boyfriend also alleges that her goal was to sell the laptop to a Russian intelligence agency, a claim January court documents say “remains under investigation,” but which has been denied by Williams’ lawyer who accuses the former partner of seeking revenge.    While Williams has not been charged with stealing the laptop itself, something she also denies, she faces multiple charges including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds as well aiding/abetting others to “embezzle, steal, purloin.” 

2021-02-22 Boebert Comically Clueless About Constitution She Swore To Defend    On Friday, apparently in response to the proposed ban on guns in Congress, Rep. Boebert declared that the Constitution is not amendable, which is false, as many pointed out.   How does @laurenboebert  think the 2A ended up in our Constitution? I mean… 

2021-02-22 Cenk Uygur DEBATES Former QAnon Follower      Retired Police Officer & Radio Host Dominick Izzo speaks with Cenk Uygur on The Conversation about why he no longer believes in QAnon.       

2021-02-21 New Jan. 6 Timeline Shows Police And Pentagon Brass Failed To Defend Capitol     1:09 PM: The mob breaks through police barriers and Sund calls the House sergeant-at-arms, Paul Irving, to ask for the National Guard. (Irving, like Sund, has since resigned.) Irving tells Sund he needs to take the request “up the chain of command.”

1:40 PM: After a 30-minute delay, Irving takes that request to staff of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

1:43 PM: Staff can be seen on video of the House proceedings passing Pelosi a note and asking for permission to call in the National Guard. Pelosi immediately says yes, and asks whether then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to be involved. Irving and the then-Senate sergeant-at-arms (also since resigned) Michael Stenger were already meeting with McConnell’s staff.

2:10 PM: Irving lets Sund know that Pelosi and McConnell approved the request for National Guard support. But at this point, the request still needs to go to the Pentagon, since Washington, D.C., is not a state and its National Guard is under federal control.

2:30 PM: In a conference call including Sund and local Washington, D.C., leaders, Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, the director of the Army staff, says he will recommend against sending the National Guard because “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a line with the Capitol in the background.”

3:04 PM: The Pentagon approves a National Guard deployment.

5:40 PM: 154 National Guard troops arrive at the Pentagon.

But by then, the damage was mostly done. Around 2:44, the mob made it into the Senate chamber and, on the House side, an officer shot and killed Ashli Babbitt as she tried to climb through a window to get to the House chamber. Around 4:25, the mob was beating police officers with flag poles and dragging them down the Capitol steps. Around the same time, a member of the mob was trampled to death.

Maybe the National Guard deployment couldn’t have arrived by 2:44 even if everyone had immediately acted on Sund’s 1:09 request. But it could have been there by 4:25. And, while every minute of that hour and 55-minute delay after Sund’s first ask for help will need to be accounted for, the bigger question is why it was such an emergency to begin with. Why the Capitol Police just had a few little barriers up that the insurrectionists could go straight through and had only 170 officers in riot gear. Why the small number of National Guard troops active in the District that day were blocked from “interacting with” the crowd of Trump supporters in town at Trump’s bidding. Why the Pentagon has changed its story about the lead-up to Jan. 6 and that 2:30 phone call. Why Sund had told members of Congress that he was totally prepared for what was coming on Jan. 6, only to be so badly underprepared. Why Irving waited half an hour before asking Pelosi for permission to ask for a National Guard deployment, which he could have asked for on his own anyway.

We know why this mob was in Washington, D.C.: because Trump asked them to be there. We know what they wanted to do: prevent Congress from certifying the results of the election. And maybe “hang Mike Pence” if they had the chance. But their unprecedented success, the first time the Capitol has been stormed since the War of 1812, the first time the Confederate flag has been carried inside the Capitol ever, that was due to failures at every level of law enforcement to take the threat seriously and respond accordingly. The leaders involved in that failure need to answer for it, in detail.

2021-02-21 Leading Republican Candidate for Governor of Virginia Met with Insurrectionists and Discussed Armed Rebellion the Day Before the January 6 Insurrection   In the Republican gubernatorial primary in Virginia, State Senator Amanda Chase has a healthy lead of 7% over her nearest competitor.   Recorded discussion included consideration of Donald Trump raising a personal army of more than a million combat veterans to help him retain control of the White House.  FBI is now investigating many of Rhodes’ associates in the Oath Keepers, and has arrested some of them in a plot since detailed by the Wall Street Journal as involving gassing all of Congress to death in the tunnels beneath the United States Capitol.  

2021-02-19  Facing Felony Charges, Capitol Insurgents Angrily Turn On Trump       It’s become self-evident that the members of the mob that raged up the National Mall and into the U.S. Capitol on January 6 believed they were doing so with the blessing of their president, Donald Trump, after he directed them there in his speech that morning at the Ellipse. They really believed Trump’s lie that they were saving America from a stolen election — leaving many of them angry and baffled when their fellow MAGA fanatics claim that the insurrection was actually the work of “antifa” leftists.    And now that they are facing real legal consequences for their actions, many of them know who to blame for their misfortune: Trump. Their ex-leader threw them under the bus, and they are eager to return the favor. 

“Only someone who thought that they had an official endorsement would even attempt such a thing.” “I think we all deserve a pardon,” “I’m facing a prison sentence. I think I do not deserve that and from what I understand, every person is going to be arrested that was there, so I think everyone deserves a pardon, so I would ask the President of the United States to give me a pardon.”   “I bought into a lie, and the lie is the lie, and it’s embarrassing,” 

“You have to understand the cult mentality,” said Broden, whose client is charged with entering the Capitol and threatening Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, saying she should be assassinated. “They prey on vulnerable victims and give them a sense of purpose. In this case, Trump convinced his cult followers that they were working to preserve democracy.” 

2021-02-16 House Republicans Attempt To Smear Pelosi Over Capitol Security Breach     The Associated Press called the claim that Pelosi was responsible for day-to-day security at the Capitol false. Bee Barnett of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society told the AP, “No one person oversees USCP — the oversight apparatus includes representation from the Architect of the Capitol, the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms, as well as committees from both Houses of Congress.”

While the Republican congressman demand that Pelosi tell them why, when U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund “made a request for national guard support on January 4th … was that request denied?” Pelosi has no role in calling in the Guard: That authority lies with the commander in chief of the armed forces, and it was Trump himself who refused for hours to call in the Guard to assist the police during the riot situation. He instead “enjoyed” watching his supporters’ actions, CNN reported. 

2021-02-15  New Study Reveals Startling Economic Profile Of Capitol Rioters       More than 200 people are facing federal criminal charges for their alleged roles in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building. And according to Washington Post reporter Todd C. Frankel, many of them have something in common: a history of financial problems. 

2021-02-14   Capitol Officers Deeply Troubled Over Agency’s Disastrous Jan. 6 Response     The interviews also revealed officers’ concerns about disparities in the way the force prepared for Black Lives Matter demonstrations versus the pro-Trump protests on January 6. Officers said the Capitol Police force usually plans intensively for protests, even if they are deemed unlikely to grow violent.

Officers said they spent weeks working 12- or 16-hour days, poised to fight off a riot, after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police — even though intelligence suggested there was not much danger from protesters.  “We had intel that nothing was going to happen — literally nothing,” said one former official with direct knowledge of planning for the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. “The response was, ‘We don’t trust the intel.'” 

By contrast, for much of the force, January 6 began like any other day.  “We normally have pretty good information regarding where these people are and how far they are from the Capitol,” said Keith McFaden, a former Capitol Police officer and union leader who retired from the force following the riot. “We heard nothing that day.”   

2021-02-13  ’Smoking Gun’: CNN Reports Explosive Remark By Trump During Insurrection    But CNN’s report brought forward what might be the most explicit evidence yet of Trump’s intent to incite the rioters as he hoped to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes making Joe Biden the next president. It also indicates he was trying to leverage the attack in his efforts to overturn the election.

“I called the president,” McCarthy had said. “I begged him to go talk to the nation.”   According to a previous report by Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News, the pair “got into a screaming match … as an enraged mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, according to a source familiar with the episode. McCarthy, one of the president’s closest allies in Congress, demanded that Trump release a statement denouncing the mob. Initially, Trump would not agree to do it.” 

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said on January 6 in the phone call, CNN reported. It cited “lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.”   McCarthy, in response, reportedly said: “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?”    At the very same moment, the report said, “rioters were breaking into his office through the windows.”

“You have to look at what he did during the insurrection to confirm where his mind was at,” Washington Republican Rep. Herrera Beutler told CNN, confirming the account of the call on the record. “That line right there demonstrates to me that either he didn’t care, which is impeachable, because you cannot allow an attack on your soil, or he wanted it to happen and was OK with it, which makes me so angry.”  

2021-02-12 Trump Defense Falsely Blames ‘Antifa’ For Capitol Riot     Fact-checkers have asserted that antifa was not behind the insurrection at the Capitol.   Right-wing media and some GOP lawmakers tried to push this baseless lie in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

2021-02-10 Disturbing Details Emerge About Backgrounds Of Capitol Rioters —Including Ex-FBI Employee    The data already shows that the demographic profile of arrestees is mainly one of older, upper-middle-class whites: business owners, white-collar workers, doctors, and lawyers. More disturbingly, military veterans and law enforcement officers, many of them currently active and some with security clearances, are being arrested. One arrested Virginia man connected to the Oath Keepers reportedly had served in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

2021-02-08 Sen. Johnson Tries To Blame Pelosi For Capitol Riot — And Gets Torched    Most of the GOP senators who are afraid of offending former President Donald Trump’s MAGA base are making procedural arguments about his impeachment trial, saying, for example, that the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer president or because U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts won’t be presiding over it. But Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is making what may be the most creative bogus argument of all: he is blaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building.

2021-02-06 Republicans Who Stoked Capitol Mob Demand Removal Of Security Measures    On Friday afternoon, Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) tweeted a copy of a letter delivered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, signed by 42 Republicans, demanding that the security fencing installed around the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., after the complex was stormed by supporters of Donald Trump on Jan. 6 be taken down.  Many of the Republicans who signed the letter helped incite the attack on the Capitol. 

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) not only voted against the certification of electoral votes, but has faced calls for her resignation by colleagues for her behavior Jan. 6, tweeting, “This is 1776” the morning of the attack and tweeting Pelosi’s movements during the attack.    A month before the attack, Trump loyalist Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) told a crowd at an event held by the right-wing organization Turning Point USA to threaten lawmakers who wouldn’t vote to overturn the election.  Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), another lawmaker who signed the letter, was named by Ali Alexander, a far-right extremist and organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the insurrection, as a fellow organizer of the riots. Biggs denied the allegations, but also sought clemency from Trump for his involvement.    Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) did vote to certify the results of the Electoral College voting, but he made inflammatory remarks encouraging violence. Days before the attack, he told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, “If we have a Democratically controlled Senate, we are basically at full-scale hot conflict in this country, whereas right now, we’re at a cold civil war.” 

2021-02-05  GOP Attempt To Discredit AOC’s Account Of Jan. 6 Backfires (She Has Receipts)    The attacks on Ocasio-Cortez came as Democratic lawmakers including Reps. Cori Bush (Mo.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Donald Norcross (N.J.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Mary Gay Scanlon (Pa.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Mark Takano (Calif.), and Peter Welch (Vt.) prepared to take to the House floor with her at approximately 5:30 pm EST to discuss their experiences on January 6 and call for accountability.  

2021-02-04 Federal Prosecutors May Indict Capitol Rioters On Racketeering Charges     The Justice Department is weighing use of the Racketeer-Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, designed to prosecute Mafia bosses for racketeering conspiracies, to charge far right group members who had a part in Donald Trump’s January 6 attempted coup at the Capitol, Reuters reports.  The RICO law “was crafted to help prosecutors convict top Mafia leaders who ordered others to commit crimes. RICO cases are complex, often take years to develop, and require approval from Justice Department leadership.”

2021-01-30 Trump Defense Secretary Disarmed D.C. National Guard Before Capitol Riot    In testimony before the House this week, Capitol Police and D.C. National Guard officials acknowledged that by Jan. 4 they understood that “… the January 6th event would not be like any of the previous protests held in 2020.    We knew that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target.”   On that same day, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller issued a memo to the secretary of the Army placing some extremely unusual limits on National Guard forces for that event. It’s not a to-do list. It’s a list of thou shalt nots. A long list. A list that says guard forces can’t arrest any of the pro-Trump protesters, or search them, or even touch them. And that’s just for starters. 

2021-01-24 ’Seditious Conspiracy’ Complaint Filed Against Three House Members In Capitol Riot   An ethics complaint has been filed against three Republican members of Congress over their participation in events that led to the violent and deadly January 6 attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol.   Reps. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, and Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona are accused of “a seditious conspiracy to use force to prevent Congress from carrying out its constitutional and statutory duties to count the votes of the Electoral College,” by the Campaign for Accountability, a government ethics watchdog founded by two former members of CREW.  If the House Ethics Office finds any or all of the three Republicans violated federal law, the group is asking for them to be expelled.  

2021-01-22 Trump Campaign Secretly Funded Jan. 6 Rally That Led To Capitol Riot     At last count, Donald Trump is the 100 percent owner of over 500 companies. Most of these companies exist just to move money between accounts, minimizing Trump’s taxes and maximizing the confusion for anyone trying to make any sense out of his finances. It now appears that Trump took this expertise to his campaign, where a number of campaign aides helped to shuffle dark money from shell companies right into the supposedly independent organizations that organized events leading up to the Jan. 6 insurgency.

2021-01-20 No Consequences For Invading State Capitols — So Rioters Turned To US Capitol    In a year in which state governments around the country have become flashpoints for conservative anger about the coronavirus lockdown and Trump’s electoral defeat, it was right-wing activists — some of them armed, nearly all of them white — who forced their way into state capitols in Idaho, Michigan, and Oregon. Each instance was an opportunity for local and national law enforcement officials to school themselves in ways to prevent angry mobs from threatening the nation’s lawmakers.   But it was Trump supporters who did the learning. That it was possible — even easy — to breach the seats of government to intimidate lawmakers. That police would not meet them with the same level of force they deployed against Black Lives Matter protesters. That they could find sympathizers on the inside who might help them.   And they learned that criminal charges, as well as efforts to make the buildings more secure, were unlikely to follow their incursions. In the three cases, police made only a handful of arrests.  

2021-01-18 Jan. 6 Was An Inside Job    

2021-01-18 New Capitol Riot Videos Pulled From Far-Right Parler Site     But there was something else that set the attack apart: Not only had we not seen something like this, but we had never been able to see any major civil clash in the way we did this one, thanks to a seemingly limitless trove of video documentation. The internet has been awash with viral clips taken by participants and members of the news media — of one police officer being brutally beaten in the crush of a mob, of another officer leading attackers away from the Senate chamber, of outlandishly dressed invaders in the Capitol.

In fact, there is vastly more video to examine because of the circumstances of this protest-turned-invasion. Not only were a great number of the participants using their smartphones to document themselves and their compatriots as they launched the attack, but many of them in turn shared the footage on Parler. That social media service had of late become the right’s chosen alternative to “Fascist-book,” as one participant at the Capitol referred to Facebook. Parler’s failure to “effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others” led Amazon to expel the site from its cloud-hosting servers.      

2021-01-11 Before His Mob Stormed Capitol, Trump Participated In Security Planning     President Donald Trump met with top military officials and gave his approval to activate the D.C. National Guard three days before he encouraged a mob of angry protesters to take their grievances to the U.S. Capitol.  A Pentagon memo released Friday offers these insights, as well as the first detailed timeline of the bungled law enforcement response to Wednesday’s insurrection.  

The timeline shows that the planning started at least as far back as Dec. 31 and included discussion with select Cabinet members of the potential need for Pentagon reinforcements.   But it also leaves many questions unanswered, including why the U.S. Capitol Police declined repeated offers of assistance from military officials and the full extent of how much Trump knew about the security planning or was involved in decision-making. 

On Sunday, Jan. 3, Miller and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, met with Trump. According to the memo, the president “concurs in activation” of the National Guard to “support law enforcement.” Miller approved the activation of 340 Guard members the following day.   The details of Trump’s conversation with Miller and Milley are not known.  

2021-01-10 Republican lawmakers caught helping pro-Trump mobs at US Capitol, Oregon statehouse  “We’re in! Let’s go, keep it moving, baby!” shouted Derrick Evans, a newly elected Republican member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates, as he is seen pushing his way through the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol with a throng of violent Trump supporters in a video live-streamed on Facebook.

Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, who describes herself as “Trump in heels,” spoke at the rally that preceded the riot on Wednesday. She later praised the rioters and blamed the violence on “antifa or BLM agents of destruction,” for which her Facebook account was suspended on Friday. After Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem posted photos of himself at Trump’s rally, he continued to push a baseless conspiracy theory — that anti-fascist activists, not Trump supporters, broke into the Capitol — which had already been debunked by the Department of Justice.  

Missouri state lawmaker Rep. Justin Hill skipped his own swearing-in ceremony to travel to Trump’s coup, where he admits he sat back and watched as an angry mob descended on the U.S. Capitol. Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a retired military colonel who said he helped organize a bus ride to the demonstrations, posed for photos with former Republican state representative Rick Saccone, who served for 18 years in the U.S. Air Force.

“We’re storming the Capitol!” Saccone said in a video he posted to Facebook. “They broke down the gates!” he continued. “They’re macing them up there. We’re trying to run out all of the evil people and all the RINOs that have betrayed our president. We’re going to run them out of their offices!”

Oregon Republican Rep. Mike Nearman was caught on video opening a door to protestors who rushed into the state Capitol in Salem on Dec. 21. Some rioters then sprayed six law enforcement officers with a chemical substance and others violently attacked journalists. 

2021-01-10 Social scientist on failed pro-Trump coup: ‘People are mistaking ridiculous with not serious’    By Merriam-Webster’s definition, a coup, short for coup d’état, is defined as “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics especially: the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.”

Rioters crossed a line in storming the Capitol and so did 65% of Republican legislators who voted to throw out legitimate votes. “It’s how we react to that line being crossed that will determine whether they’ll try again,” Tufekci said. “And there’s no reason to assume the next time will be similarly ridiculous or incompetant because this time was very serious.”       

2021-01-10  Notorious White Nationalists Identified In Capitol Rioting  Members of the ultranationalist street gang known as the Proud Boys were easy to spot at the protests that flared across the United States throughout 2020, often in the middle of a brawl, typically clad in black and yellow outfits.   But in December, as the group’s leaders planned to flood Washington to oppose the certification of the Electoral College vote this week for President-elect Joe Biden, they decided to do something different.    “The ProudBoys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist…,” Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the group’s president, wrote in a late-December post on Parler, a social media platform that has become popular with right-wing activists and conservatives. “We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows….we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion.”   

……..

2021-01-10 Watch: Video busts 5 Trump allies for lying about their support of his election overturn and coup attempt   A nearly two-minute super-cut of hypocrisy shows Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Montana Senator Steve Daines, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former White House communications director Alyssa Farah, and Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani all lying their faces off, as if they had always opposed Trump’s attempts to steal the election now that a pro-Trump insurrectionist coup attempt occurred at the U.S. Capitol.     

2021-01-10 Incoming GOP rep. apologizes for saying ‘Hitler was right’ in speech at US Capitol — but people aren’t buying it  While she wasn’t talking about the Nazi leader’s decision to kill over six million Jews, queers and others, she said, “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future,'” adding that to build a lasting social movement conservatives must win the hearts and minds of our children,” like Hitler’s Nazi Youth program did, presumably.  

2021-01-10 Republican lawmakers caught helping pro-Trump mobs at US Capitol, Oregon statehouse  “We’re in! Let’s go, keep it moving, baby!” shouted Derrick Evans, a newly elected Republican member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates, as he is seen pushing his way through the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol with a throng of violent Trump supporters in a video live-streamed on Facebook.

Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, who describes herself as “Trump in heels,” spoke at the rally that preceded the riot on Wednesday. She later praised the rioters and blamed the violence on “antifa or BLM agents of destruction,” for which her Facebook account was suspended on Friday. After Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem posted photos of himself at Trump’s rally, he continued to push a baseless conspiracy theory — that anti-fascist activists, not Trump supporters, broke into the Capitol — which had already been debunked by the Department of Justice.  

Missouri state lawmaker Rep. Justin Hill skipped his own swearing-in ceremony to travel to Trump’s coup, where he admits he sat back and watched as an angry mob descended on the U.S. Capitol. Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a retired military colonel who said he helped organize a bus ride to the demonstrations, posed for photos with former Republican state representative Rick Saccone, who served for 18 years in the U.S. Air Force.

“We’re storming the Capitol!” Saccone said in a video he posted to Facebook. “They broke down the gates!” he continued. “They’re macing them up there. We’re trying to run out all of the evil people and all the RINOs that have betrayed our president. We’re going to run them out of their offices!”

Oregon Republican Rep. Mike Nearman was caught on video opening a door to protestors who rushed into the state Capitol in Salem on Dec. 21. Some rioters then sprayed six law enforcement officers with a chemical substance and others violently attacked journalists. 

2021-01-10 Social scientist on failed pro-Trump coup: ‘People are mistaking ridiculous with not serious’    By Merriam-Webster’s definition, a coup, short for coup d’état, is defined as “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics especially: the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.”

Rioters crossed a line in storming the Capitol and so did 65% of Republican legislators who voted to throw out legitimate votes. “It’s how we react to that line being crossed that will determine whether they’ll try again,” Tufekci said. “And there’s no reason to assume the next time will be similarly ridiculous or incompetant because this time was very serious.”   /     

2021-01-09 Dark money group behind Republican state attorneys general organized protest before the insurrection  it becomes clearer that this was a planned revolt and that it was organized within the Republican establishment. So much so that the Republican Association of Attorneys General (RAGA)—the chief Republican law enforcement officers for their states—used its dark money group to help organize the mob. The Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), a “nonprofit” set up by the RAGA, appears in a list of groups “Participating in the March to Save America” along with Stop the Steal, Turning Point Action, Tea Party Patriots, and others.

The RLDF sent out a robocall to activists saying: “The march to save America is tomorrow in Washington D.C. at the Ellipse in President’s Park between E St. and Constitution Avenue on the south side of the White House, with doors opening at 7:00 a.m.” So they’re making sure everyone knows where to go. It gets worse. “At 1:00 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on congress to stop the steal. We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections.” The call gives a web address, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, and concludes: “This call is paid for and authorized by the Rule of Law Defense Fund.” Again, this is coming from state attorneys general, the people elected to uphold and enforce the rule of law. 

2021-01-09 Trump’s final pivot to terrorism  Trump’s mob committed these treasonous and seditious acts of terrorism while the Electoral College votes that would formally make Joe Biden the next president of the United States were being counted.

The assault on the Capitol building was echoed by Trump’s thugs in state capitals and elsewhere across the United States on Wednesday. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (another Republican branded as a traitor by Trump and his followers) was forced to flee the state capitol building. Trumpists also breached the gates surrounding the governor’s mansion in Olympia, Washington, and briefly occupied the grounds.

Make no mistake: Trump’s terrorists launched their assault on the Capitol with the encouragement and permission of Trump and other leading Republicans, many of whom — even after Wednesday’s outrageous spectacle — continued to do Trump’s bidding by trying to nullify the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s spokespeople and other agents of chaos, sedition and treason, along with the right-wing news media more generally, have also both explicitly and implicitly encouraged such terrorism.  

2021-01-09 Watch: Lindsey Graham requires police protection while being accosted by Trump supporters     U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) required police and security officers to escort him through Reagan National Airport in D.C. Friday, after publicly distancing himself from President Donald Trump during Wednesday’s counting of the electoral votes.

Trump’s MAGA supporters surrounded him, verbally assaulted, harassed, and accosted him, repeatedly shouted several expletives at the South Carolina Republican, and screamed, “audit our vote” – a conspiracy theory demand sown by Graham and President Donald Trump that led to Wednesday’s attempted coup.

2021-01-08 Trump pushes US closer to a banana republic   The insurrection was the worst incidence of election-related violence in the U.S. since 1920, and the first time the Capitol has been attacked by its own citizens.  Former president George W. Bush, the last Republican president prior to Trump, condemned the event, stating: “This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic.” 

What exactly are banana republics?   They typically force changes in government via coup or assassination in order to seize power. They often have populist leaders or strongmen who take power by force or refuse to relinquish it. Banana republics are therefore politically unstable, with unreliable transfers of power and frequent assassinations.  

2021-01-08 Wall Street Journal calls on Trump to resign — says his conduct was ‘impeachable’  The siege of the U.S. Capitol during the counting of the Electoral College vote, a clear effort by the mob riled up by Trump’s false claims of a stolen election to overturn his decisive loss to President-elect Joe Biden, was the final straw, the board said.

“This was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election,” it said. “It was also an assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view it crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasn’t previously crossed. It is impeachable.” 

2021-01-08 Trump finally admits defeat — while lying through his teeth  (Video)  

2021-01-08 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demands Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley resign  — or be removed  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday vehemently rejected a call by Sen. Ted Cruz for lawmakers and Americans to put the current “anger and division behind us,” 24 hours after the senator himself baselessly contested the presidential election results—an action which helped incite a mob of thousands to storm the Capitol building in what has been characterized as an insurrection.    

2021-01-07 The Coup in Washington: Why is Anyone Surprised by Trump’s Fascist Politics?    How did we get here? And why is any of this a surprise to the legions of fascism deniers in the U.S. who have long insisted that the U.S. is not falling into authoritarian politics? Nothing about what’s happened in the capital should be a surprise to those who have taken a sober look at the rising fascism that now characterizes American politics.

Trump told the nation that he would not accept the results of an election he lost before a single ballot was counted on election day. And he has been leading an effort on countless fronts to overturn the results for the last two months, in the states, in the judicial branch, in Congress, and now in the streets.

Sadly, this fascist threat has been consistently downplayed every step of the way. Being intimately familiar with the mainstream academic work on fascism and the professors who produce it, I can confidently say that there are few American scholars who are willing to openly call Trump a fascist, and even fewer scholars who are willing to publicly claim that the U.S. political system contains elements of fascism.   American journalists have also been squeamish about the “fascism” designation when it comes to their reporting on Trump. 

2021-01-07 Why Is Trump Still President?   The failure of rapid action places democracy at risk. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Congress “may” proceed to impeach. Schumer said that Congress “should” reconvene to impeach, but of course until the swearing in of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on January 20, he will not be the majority leader with the power to do so. And that’s too late by definition.

The idea that impeachment should be conditional on the use of the 25th amendment process is absurd; the figures who would have to invoke that process are massively conflicted. First of all, they are Trump loyalists, at least if they survived in the cabinet this long. Mike Pence may have broken with Trump but that’s far from clear for the rest of the cabinet. More important, the president holds the pardon power and has shown every willingness to use it, including on himself. The legality of self-pardoning has never been tested in court, obviously, but Trump can legally dangle pardons for those who would make the choice to throw him out of office, with no check on that power.  

2021-01-07 The Republicans enabling Trump’s ‘confederate’ insurrection     This isn’t theater. They mean it. Their intentions are clear. Josh Hawley and six other Republican senators really did vote to deny the legitimacy of Pennsylvania’s lawful election. Nearly 140 House Republicans really did the same. Ted Cruz and five other Republican senators really did vote to deny the legitimacy of Arizona’s lawful election. More than 120 House Republicans really did the same.

They declared where they stand—against the Union and for a confederacy of the mind and spirit. Through it all, they repeated the same lies, the same propaganda and the same venom that fueled insurgents storming the Capitol, leading to a woman’s death. The Republicans were not chastened. They were not humbled. They were inspired.    

2021-01-07 A Dark, Dark Day for America   But we need to be very clear that responsibility is shared by Trump’s enablers.   A dozen or more U.S. senators and more than 100 members of Congress are today aiding and abetting an effort to undertake a coup — a coup effort that is preordained to fail, but a coup attempt nonetheless.   Unlike the pro-Trump mob that I saw, none of those senators and virtually none of those House members actually believe that Trump won the election or has any valid claim of widespread election improprieties.   Soon enough, this distressing episode in American history will be behind us. But its corrosive impact will remain.  

2021-01-07 This Is Who We Are  “Let me be very clear,” Joe Biden assured us on TV yesterday afternoon. “The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are.”

The mob of Trumpers that smashed its way into the Capitol yesterday should serve as a rebuke to such willful innocence. The rioters inflamed by the endless lies and racist conspiracy theories spouted from the White House are just the latest in an unbroken tradition that is as truly American as the people of all races who have struggled for a tolerant, egalitarian, and democratic nation. One cannot honor the latter without coming to grips with the people they fought against.

The history of modern American conservatism is strewn with similar examples of bigoted movements that got help from authorities, political and otherwise.   This atrocious national tradition will likely endure years after Trump has retreated to his resort in Florida and his followers have found other leaders and movements to stoke their fear and anger. Sweet talk about “unity” and our “better angels” did not defeat them before and will not now. Confront them with the truth, block them in the legislatures and the executive suites and the courts, protest them in the streets, and crush them at the polls. 

2021-01-07 Equating White Nationalists and “Left Radicals” Is What Got Us Here in the First Place   Media outlets and politicians are baselessly claiming the pro-Trump crowd was made up of “socialists,” “anarchists,” and “antifa.” Here’s why that’s so dangerous.   Before the events of the day had ful­ly unfold­ed, con­ser­v­a­tive media out­lets and politi­cians were already cir­cu­lat­ing base­less claims that left-wing move­ments were respon­si­ble for the events that unfold­ed — blam­ing ​“social­ists,” ​“anar­chists” and ​“antifa” for an action that was clear­ly foment­ed and car­ried out by the Right.

But blame for feed­ing this cli­mate of anti-left fear-mon­ger­ing extends across the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Through­out the past four years of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers and cen­trist media out­lets have repeat­ed­ly equat­ed antifas­cists deter­mined to stop reac­tionary forces with these very reac­tionary forces them­selves.  

The false equa­tion of the Right and the Left erodes our abil­i­ty to name and iden­ti­fy the dan­ger­ous forces that under­lie Trump­ism, cast­ing polit­i­cal con­tent itself as irrel­e­vant. This is a prob­lem because polit­i­cal con­tent mat­ters: The fact that a far-right move­ment sought to unde­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly seize pow­er, cheered on by the pres­i­dent, should trou­ble us all. 

It is exact­ly this polit­i­cal cur­rent that the Left is try­ing to counter and defeat, with an urgency that has been repeat­ed­ly dis­missed, den­i­grat­ed and misrepresented.   Media out­lets and politi­cians have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to be accu­rate, and avoid feed­ing into this false equiv­a­len­cy, which gives ide­o­log­i­cal fuel and moral cov­er to a far-right polit­i­cal project. 

2021-01-07 America Is Built to Feed Us Poison   It is not that the storm­ing of the Unit­ed States Capi­tol sul­lied our hal­lowed democ­ra­cy. That build­ing has wit­nessed more than its fair share of atroc­i­ties before yes­ter­day, and all of them were com­mit­ted by the mem­bers of Con­gress con­duct­ing the offi­cial busi­ness of the Unit­ed States — wars, oli­garchy, impe­ri­al­ism and the like. The napalmed chil­dren of Viet­nam and the bombed chil­dren of Iraq and the home­less moth­ers who work for $7.25 per hour and sleep in their car because the fed­er­al min­i­mum wage has not been raised in a decade would not weep for the sanc­ti­ty of that build­ing, and nei­ther should we. Drap­ing the naked greed and hypocrisy of Con­gress in holy lan­guage to insu­late it from judg­ment is con­ve­nient for mem­bers of Con­gress, yes. But let’s make them earn it with their behavior. 

It is the belief that the pur­pose of life is to gain the max­i­mum amount of ben­e­fit for your­self. I say this not to advance some Hall­mark Card alter­na­tive, but to point out that this is the orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple of our soci­ety, and the atroc­i­ties we per­pe­trate and expe­ri­ence are ulti­mate­ly trace­able back to this. Don­ald Trump may clear­ly be a half-insane racist lunatic, but his life embod­ies this orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple, and for that rea­son he has had great suc­cess. Ted Cruz may look like he is always drink­ing a cup of urine, but he acts in accor­dance with this prin­ci­ple, and now he is a pow­er­ful man. Our most respect­ed heroes, to whom we grant the great­est def­er­ence and pres­tige, are peo­ple who hoard cof­fers of wealth that they could nev­er spend in ten life­times, and peo­ple who arrange things so that they can do so. To set out to do noth­ing but help your­self is the Amer­i­can dream, and we love those who achieve it so much that we elect them pres­i­dent even if we, per­son­al­ly, are sick, poor and ignored. Cap­i­tal­ism is the the­o­ry that every­one act­ing for their own naked good will pro­duce social ben­e­fit in the aggre­gate. Amer­i­ca in 2021 is a counterexample.   

2021-01-07 GOP Senator Inhofe: ‘I’ve never seen Pence as angry as he was today’     “I’ve known Mike Pence forever. I’ve never seen Pence as angry as he was today…. I had a long conversation with him. He said, ‘After all the things I’ve done for (Trump).'”   “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: You did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house. As we reconvene … the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy.” 

Inhofe also told AP that he wasn’t happy with the Republicans in the House and the Senate who vowed to contest the electoral college results during the January 6 congressional joint session.   “Republicans have always been for states’ rights,” Inhofe argued. “Democrats are the ones who always tried to nationalize elections.”   

2021-01-07 Pro-Trump Insurrectionists Seize Capitol  If the immediate goal in this fraudulent campaign of lies was to keep Trump as president, the longer-range objective appears to be for far-right Republicans marching under a Trumpian banner to propel a takeover of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024. The potential goal: an America run by an autocrat, democracy be damned.   It’s a good bet we won’t have heard the last of Trump once he leaves the White House.  

2021-01-07 ‘Cannot endure this nightmare for a second longer’: Nearly 100 lawmakers demand Pence invoke 25th Amendment  In a letter to Pence late Wednesday after the Capitol was finally secured, 19 members of the House Judiciary Committee wrote that “Trump’s willingness to incite violence and social unrest to overturn the election results by force clearly meet” the standard required by the 25th Amendment, which gives the vice president and a majority of sitting Cabinet secretaries the authority to remove a president who is “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.  Robert Weissman, president of consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, said late Wednesday that by provoking “an insurrection designed to advance his hapless coup attempt and erode confidence in our democratic process,” Trump has “conclusively demonstrated his unfitness for office” and “cannot be permitted to remain in office even for two more weeks.”   “The risks of more deranged action are simply too high,” said Weissman.

2021-01-07 ‘A mass-delusion event’: Reporter describes disturbing conversations with far-right extremists before Capitol invasion   “Insurrection Day, 12:40 p.m. A group of about 80 lumpen Trumpists were gathered outside the Commerce Department, near the White House. They organized themselves in a large circle, and stared at a boombox rigged to a megaphone. Their leader and, for some, savior — a number of them would profess to me their belief that the 45th president is an agent of God and his son, Jesus Christ — was rehearsing his pitiful list of grievances.”   Trump told the crowd, “A year from now, we’re gonna start working on Congress. We gotta get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good — the Liz Cheneys of the world. We gotta get rid of them.”     

2021-01-07 Capitol Incident a Dress Rehearsal It was in some ways the downtrodden forcing their existence into the faces of an elitist Congress who serve very powerful interests instead.     But it was also the delusive manipulation of desperate people by Donald Trump, a master manipulator who for his own interests has somehow convinced millions of Americans that he is their champion whose re-election was stolen from them, even when it is doubtful their lives were much improved over the past four years.

What this event did is send a message, which went beyond claims of a stolen election, a message that no one in Congress or the media will openly acknowledge, if they’ve gotten the message at all, namely, that as long as Congress and the rest of the Establishment continue to ignore ordinary Americans’ interests and serve only their own, the anger and the desperation in the land will explode, rendering Wednesday’s events merely a dress rehearsal for what may well turn into a full-blown insurrection.  Congress must understand this before it’s too late.  

2021-01-07 Here’s how to prevent a 2024 Trump campaign The goal of a second impeachment would not be to remove Trump from the White House, unless, of course, he somehow manages to pull off a coup d’état before January 20. The goal would be to disqualify Trump from ever holding federal office again.

Under Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution, judgment in cases of impeachment extends to both sanctions—removal from current office and disqualification from holding future office. Since Trump reportedly has floated the idea of running for president again in 2024, a second impeachment would be designed to deal a death blow to another Trump campaign with hearings in the House and a trial in the Senate focused on the “high crimes and misdemeanors”—the phrase used in Article II of the Constitution to define impeachable offenses, along with treason and bribery—that Trump committed in his first term in office. Impeachable offenses, moreover, are not subject to the pardon power.

A second set of impeachment articles returned against Trump could allege a bundle of serious crimes. Nor would the fact that Trump was no longer president legally bar a second impeachment. If he were faced with a second impeachment, Trump wouldn’t get off as easily as he did the first time around. He would still have to be convicted of an impeachable offense by a two-thirds Senate majority, but as Amherst College professor Austin Surat argued in a USA Today column published January 4, only a simple majority vote would be needed for disqualification.    

2021-01-07 It’s regime change within the Empire: Utterances in the US capitol     Whatever is done – taken into account, analyzed or ignored – a part of regime change in the Empire has come out in front of the audience of MSM around the world, and that part is not that much of a joyful one. Rather, it says some disease is there, which will resurface repeatedly until fully cured.

2021-01-07 Several U.S. Attorneys Vow to Prosecute Seditionists  But ones in jurisdictions with residents who stormed the Capitol did not initially commit to use their authority under the law.  All of these U.S. attorneys were appointed by President Trump.   Hundreds of those who were part of the mob yesterday have not yet been identified and most were allowed to walk home—DC Police initially announced just 13 arrests. This morning that number reached 68, with four people dead and at least 56 DC police officers injured. The department also said that six firearms have been found and two pipe bombs discovered.   Already, social media has helped identify several people who were part of yesterday’s attempted coup..    

2020-01-07 Here is the message Republicans must take from failed coup attempt: Trump biographer   What are the consequences of Republican leaders failing to denounce Trump totally and back up denunciations with action?   Trump and his dangerous and armed mob will become millstones around your necks. And your failings will brand you as traitors unfit to hold public office.   For the Josh Hawleys, Ted Cruzes and other seditious Republican senators and representatives any further defense of Trump should end of your political careers and your acceptance in civilized society.  

Thank goodness someone had the presence of mind to gather up the state certifications of the November election results, denying Trump another opportunity to attack the Biden inauguration.

That the crowd did not disperse proves his words hollow. Instead, live television carried voices of rioters vowing violence, promising to press on. As the sun set and darkness enveloped the Capitol grounds, where were federal law enforcement other than the Capitol Police?

Trump put at risk the life of his own vice president, Mike Pence, on whom he painted a target during his incitement of the rioters. He endangered the next two people in line for the presidency, Nancy Pelosi, House speaker, and Chuck Grassley, Senate president pro tem.

2021-01-07 ‘Couldn’t have done it without you’: Missouri paper lays the blame for Capitol mob squarely on its own senator’s shoulder  No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.”

Those of you who have excused all of the brazen lawlessness of this administration can take a little bit of credit for these events, too,” the paper wrote. “They couldn’t have done it without you.”  

2021-01-06 The New Progressive Left Shows How to Deal With Sedition    The Squad, both old and new, immediately drafted a series of steps to deal with Republican insurrectionists directly, rather than hoping they’d just be nicer.  Some have alleged that the Squad members are no different in constitution than the mealy mouthed moderates of the Democratic Party, or the pushover progressives of years gone by. But in the moments following Wednesday’s coup attempt, encouraged by President Trump and congressional Republicans, the first and most robust responses to the situation came from these very members, taking action while leadership either remained silent or simply called on Trump or some other deus ex machina to calm his supporters. What it might look like to have such a formidable progressive beachhead in Congress has been largely based on projection to this point, for obvious reasons. But Wednesday showcased just how powerful this flank could be going forward. The freshmen came out aggressively, pushing not only for a second impeachment of Trump, but for removal of the Republicans who abetted and openly courted the putsch.   

2021-01-06 Trump faces calls for his immediate impeachment as his supporters launch insurrection on the U.S. Capitol 

2021-01-07 Listen: Rudy Giuliani urges the wrong senator to ‘slow it down’ so Trump has more time to overturn the election   Rudy Giuliani called a Republican senator on Wednesday during the chaos of the storming of the U.S. Capitol, hoping to slow down the final step in the affirmation of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.   

I’m calling you because I want to discuss with you how they’re trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you. And I know they’re reconvening at 8 tonight, but it … the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow—ideally until the end of tomorrow.”    So if you could object to every state and, along with a congressman, get a hearing for every state, I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us the opportunity to get the legislators who are very, very close to pulling their vote, particularly after what McConnell did today.  Giuliani’s claim that they just need more time to gather evidence and get information to Congress is preposterous.     

2021-01-06 ‘Call it off! It’s over!’: Republican lawmaker loses it at Trump as his supporters assault the Capitol    “Right now, I am sheltered in place, in my office, because we have protesters who have stormed the Capitol, clashing with Capitol Police, forcing their way into Statuary Hall,” Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin  said. “The vice president of the United States was just rushed off the floor of the House by Secret Service. This is banana Republic crap that we’re watching happen right now!”    

2021-01-06 Trump celebrates the siege on the Capitol after one person is reported dead: ‘Remember this day forever!  President Donald Trump justified and celebrated a criminal and insurrectionist siege on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, even after a woman was reported to have died in the chaos.   “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Trump told the rioters on Twitter, still falsely claiming that he won the 2020 election. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” 

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The Trump Presidency – Index

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