Yes, What Happened Yesterday Is a Big Deal
Opinions vary on the meaning of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol yesterday.There are those who see it as more minor. They point to the riots on the left this past summer (and beyond in many cities) and basically think that those were seen by Big Media and the radical left as legitimate, so what’s the big deal if a ragtag group of idiots breaks a few windows at the Capitol? They didn’t stop the certification and they were never going to, so while it’s bad, it’s not a catastrophe.
I disagree. I think it is a Very Big Deal.
For one thing, I worry about the long-term effect of the precedent set here — not just by the storming of the Capitol, but the entire effort to reverse the election results. My opinions on what ought to happen to the people involved are unpublishable, but it is a matter of record that I would support (at a minimum) the participants being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. Literally. I would also support their expulsion from Congress. I would also support their being denied committee memberships and chairs and the like. There’s actually very little I would not support being done to them, but now we’re getting into the unpublishable part again. (I’m glad that cooler heads are prevailing and that my wishes are not being carried out, because it would probably create martyrs and be counterproductive.)
Why am I so virulently opposed? Because this entire enterprise makes it that much less likely that we will ever have a completely peaceful transfer of power again. First of all, the immoral sentiment that “we get to do what the worst people on the other side have done, and in fact we get to escalate it!” is not unique to the right. If you don’t think evil demagogues on the left stand ready to exploit that sentiment, you haven’t been paying attention. And even if it is unique to the right, who the hell cares? We don’t want to say that this is how we do business going forward — that in literally every election going forward, all the loser has to do is refuse to concede, make shit up about what happened, and a mob of goons will scurry to validate the lies and use them as a justification to act violently.
We’re already seeing the precedent play out, in the absolutely disgraceful refusal of the Senate in Pennsylvania to swear in a duly elected state senator whose opponent’s challenges have all been rejected by the state’s highest court, and whose elected has been certified by the proper authorities there. We’re seeing it in the statement of the execrable David Perdue, who darkly suggests that his defeat might have been fraudulent. Donald Trump’s infantile butthurt over losing an election is immensely corrosive to our civic society, and will have ripple effects for God knows how long.
As for comparisons to the BLM riots, this was worse because it was an attack on our government, but I want to take a moment to make it very, very clear that I am second to nobody in my disgust for the constant rioting that has been taking place. I am in law enforcement. I believe in law and order and the rule of law. While I decried what Donald Trump did to peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square, I actually thought he was right in his criticisms of the Democrat mayors who simply let their cities burn. Few things are more destabilizing and frightening than watching civil society go to hell, and one of the acts that was the closest parallel to what we saw yesterday was the setting of a police station on fire in Minneapolis. That is a direct assault on the people who protect our society, and that kind of thing cannot be tolerated. Anybody who tries to ding me for being upset about yesterday, and tries to mount some kind of personal attack on me premised on the notion that I minimized the riots — simply because they were not an actual attack on the pillar of our federal government — is persona non grata here. It’s obvious that an actual insurrection is worse, but that in no way minimizes what BLM has done to our country, and indeed I think our 2020 election results, to the extent that they were favorable to the GOP, were a backlash to exactly the sort of “defund the police” mindset that I have consistently opposed and decried. If you suggest that I am anything less than foursquare opposed to that sort of mindset or to riots, you are wrong and you are offensively wrong, and you owe me an apology. I take that sort of thing very personally.
So why do I say yesterday was worse, though? Look at what is happening across the world today. Dictators in Venezuela and Turkey are reveling in our dysfunction. Erdogan is offering to send aid to help us — as he laughs and laughs and laughs. There were people roaming our streets demanding loyalty oaths to Trump, and roaming our Capitol shouting “where is Pence?” — people who might have killed Pence had they found him. Watch some of the footage to see what it was like. People who murder journalists and dissidents have scored the greatest propaganda victory of my lifetime. This is a Big F*cking Deal.
Meanwhile, I saw a bunch of lovely speeches on TV yesterday from Senators like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio saying that Congress simply can’t do what the Trumpers want, and that they have been misled. Would that they have told that to the people before yesterday.
I’d like to think yesterday was a turning point. Kelly Loeffler and others (not all) withdrew their objections as if they had finally recognized that this is Not a Game. People are resigning from the Trump administration (a tiny, tiny bit) early. Trump has opened an account on Parler — a fringe figure retreating to a fringe platform.
My optimism is probably ill-founded. The “what did you expect?” takes from the Tough Crowd are already being published and garnering those all-important clicks, to the point where, on fringe sites like the one I used to work for, it’s now apostasy to suggest that maybe yesterday should not be justified. (But the apostasy is being published by the courageous and ought to be recognized. Well done, Joe.)
But for today, I’ll remain content in my fantasy that this has destroyed the political careers of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and anyone else who instigated this rebellion.
I think you are confusing the symptoms vs. the disease.
J. M. (ae9309) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:07 amParallel observation:
A vast number of the people who invaded the Capitol yesterday had smartphones in their hands the whole time. They didn’t invade the Capitol in service to any meaningful principle – they invaded the Capitol to snag photos and videos that would garner them attention on social media.
Social media is absolutely toxic, and it is rotting this country.
Leviticus (efada1) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:11 amThis wasn’t some “Congressional panty raid” as a commenter here suggested.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:15 amApplying the 25th Amendment is also a big deal, but the math works in our anti-Trump favor.
This line:
succinctly encapsulates a thought I’ve been trying to articulate clearly.
I’m sure I’ll re-use it.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:18 amI’ve seen the “this is no worse than BLM and Antifa during the summer” argument, and i’ve been struggling with how to respond to it, and I think this is where I come down:
Breaking into and looting businesses is terrible behavior which is harmful to the community.
Breaking into and looting the office of the legislature while the legislature is meeting, in an attempt to prevent the legislature from doing its job, is a direct attack on the country as a whole.
Here’s an analogy:
the Pulse bombing was a terrorist attack that was terrible. It killed a bunch of people. It directly injured members of my subculture, so I felt it in a lot of ways as a personal threat. Same with Route 91 harvest, which in a lot of ways was even closer to home. Or Gilroy.
9-11 was a terrorist attack that waas terrible, and it was also a direct attack on the country.
The violence over the summer was like pulse, route 91, or gilroy. Yesterday was like 9-11.
And that’s even before you get to the fact that this was deliberately stirred up and goaded on by the President. Look at the footage of his speech before the crowd at his rally. He openly encouraged them to march on Congress and stop Congress from certifying the election. And they listened.
*That* makes this an act unparalleled in the history of the United States.
The President of the United States encouraged an angry mob to attack the Congress, and they listened, and did it.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:21 amI agree that it is a very big deal; it should be taken seriously by everyone. I was mistaken in thinking that only the Capitol was involved, but there were protests at other Capitol buildings, too. State Capitol building of Kansas was also breached.
felipe at a different terminal (084d77) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:23 amI think the protest yesterday was mostly peaceful, and marred by a few hundred or more that attempted an insurrection. It’s good to see people who have struggled to grasp how an event that resulted in violence could be called mostly peaceful finally understand it.
Two other thing differentiate this from the BLM protests.
1. For the most part its clear that the violence was not part off of the intended BLM protest and was the result of extremists and opportunists. This act of terrorism was done explicitly in furtherance of the Trump movement.
2. The Antifa violence wasn’t done at that urging of an elected figure or official. Trump asked the crowd to do this and GOP leaders supported, and continue to support him in that.
Final point
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:23 amI fully agree that violence isn’t part of free speech and there’s a bright line between the morons that obeyed the law and the morons that didn’t.
Leviticus, at 2: that, of course, is the thing which will make it much easier to prosecute them. Seems utterly, mind-numbingly stupid. “here, let me videotape myself committing a felony and then publish it to the world!”
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:26 amSince many of the cast of characters that enabled Trump to do what he did for 4 years are still in Congress, I’m not inclined to vote GOP in the 2022 midterms or the 2024 presidential contest, absent a major earthshaking change(I’m not optimistic on that). The Trump base makes a large swath of the GOP base, the lack of which will not make the Republicans viable in a general election. Trump most likely won’t be quiet as a former president, neither will his superfans. Time will tell.
As for Trump, Cruz, and Hawley, if they become politically less relevant by 2022, and irrevelant by 2024, then I will believe their careers are finished.
HCI (92ea66) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:29 amEvery army has its impedimenta, rear echelon, and camp followers. I didn’t buy the “mostly peaceful” meal-ymouth for the Antifa riots and I don’t buy it now, especially as Time123 points out the whole thing was organized and led by Trump.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:30 amPatterico does hint at gradients of importance when it comes to rioters’ targets, and I would suggest the following levels, with the lower the number the less important. To me, this is why the Trump cultist attack yesterday was dead serious.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:32 am1. Corporate HQ
2. Walmart, Starbucks etc.
3. Mom-and-pop store
4. Someone’s personal residence, my home is my castle.
5. Police precinct, or similar attack on our law enforcement or legal system.
6. State or national capitol, which is an attack on our country.
John Catanzara, the president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police lodge, elected to represent the city’s 12,000 rank-and-file cops, is unfit to work in Law enforcement.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:33 am40K showed up.
4K rioted.
It was mostly peaceful.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:33 amCatanzara is already on the verge of being fired.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:39 am@Pat: I agree with you that it’s a very “Very Big Deal.”
I wouldn’t shed any tears if some of the congress critters *do* get expelled from the chambers, if for nothing else to apply a zero tolerance for these sort of behaviors.
But saying that the media/Democrats tactically approved of the BLM/antifa riots, while condemning what happened yesterday is a separate issues. It’s calling out the media/Democrat’s hypocrisy and it’s also a big deal.
We can condemn BOTH, can’t we?
Also, I hope the Democrats does move forward with the 2nd impeachment efforts, even if the Senate doesn’t remove Trump of office. Trump’ll be the FIRST president with 2 impeachment on record…. that’s not nothing.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:43 amOne could be sympathetic with Trump if there was some honest-to-God good faith evidence…that meets some reasonable objective standard…that suggests pervasive voter fraud. But there simply isn’t and this makes the whole Trump exercise bad faith….and would mean, if allowed to work, no election would ever be definitively over….until the inevitable required months and months of hearings and investigations occurred. The fact that Trump was asking the Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to allow him to find votes should underscore the intent here. It’s depressing that too much of right-wing media refuses to shoot straight on this….and is indulging this “hearings” nonsense and distracting with the Capitol security issue. Until the media acts in good faith, I fear sheeple will continue to rationalize worse and worse behavior.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:46 amA vast number of the people who invaded the Capitol yesterday had smartphones in their hands the whole time. They didn’t invade the Capitol in service to any meaningful principle – they invaded the Capitol to snag photos and videos that would garner them attention on social media.
And provided ample evidence to law enforcement.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:47 am> Trump most likely won’t be quiet as a former president, neither will his superfans
no, but i expect that twitter, et al, will deplatform him for violating their terms of service, as soon as he is no longer in office.
facebook/instagram have already said they won’t unlock his account until after jan. 20, and i’m not sure they’ll actually unlock then.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:47 amAJ_Liberty: most of us on the left take yesterday’s vote in the House as a sign that any Democratic presidential election victory will be blocked by a Republican controlled House for the forseeable future.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:48 am@14
I’ll admit that I’m biased, as I lived 15 minutes away when Ferguson blew up. But I’m going to disagree with you here.
I don’t agree with that characterization. Nor do I agree with it when the BLM/antifa riots blew up.
At SOME POINT, the “peaceful” protestors leadership bears some responsibility with the violence occuring under the aegis of their movement. Especially when it’s not condemned in vigourous terms.
If you’re going to place blame on Trump’s lap for what happened yesterday (as I do), then the people who participated in the protest also bears some responsibility too. That doesn’t mean that truly peaceful folks should be charged with a crime or the like… just some recognition that their movement provide the means & opportunity for the 10% to break the law. I just hope the folks realize that, yes they’re upset at the election results, that the better way to channel their anger is to work hard in the next election cycle, rather than lashing out like yesterday.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:52 amYeah, 120 GOP reps voting like that is truly insane. It was more than 60% of the GOP caucus, for an election that wasn’t very close. The GOP has established its position as opposed to democracy, plain and simple. Why would I vote for a party that doesn’t care how I vote?
The democrats have done little things slightly of this flavor before, and they will do it again. The same grifter mentality that cruz used to raise more money and out-trump others, that’s in the hearts of many politicians. There is only one way to stop this, and that’s through removing Cruz and pals from office.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:53 amTrump most likely won’t be quiet as a former president…..
At least the MSM can stop breathlessly reporting his every tweet or Parler posting. He will just be another Internet crank.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:56 amWhy is it so hard to differentiate between the large group lawfully petitioning that what they see as a wrong be addressed, opportunists that want to use that as cover to commit crimes, and an extremist wing that wants to accomplish their political goals through violence?
BLM, most of the morons there yesterday: group lawfully petitioning that what they see as a wrong be addressed
Antifa, Proud Boys, For Profit Criminals: opportunists that want to use that as cover to commit crimes
Antifa, Proud Boys, President Trump: an extremist wing that wants to accomplish their political goals through violence
Then you get into the leaders that differentiate between lawful protest and violence: Romney, Biden, eventually McConnel.
The leaders that encourage violence to support their ends: Trump, Omar, Hawley, Geatz
The leaders that lie about what’s happening and provide cover those that encourage violence; Cruz etc.
Life would be easier if it were black and white but it’s not.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:58 amaphrael,
I’d wager dollars to donuts that these social media companies are acutely aware that the photos and video footage from the Capitol – the sheer number of phones in hand shown therein – make it apparent just how responsible they (the social media companies) are for crisis that we are now facing.
Their deplatforming of Trump at this juncture is as transparently disingenuous as Lindsay Graham’s. Lindsay Graham is complicit for stoking conspiracy theories in the rotted brains of Trump’s followers. But Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al. are responsible for rotting those brains in the first place.
Leviticus (efada1) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:58 amEveryone Who Has Quit the Trump Administration After Capitol Attack
It’s a pretty short and meaningless list. Let me know when someone important resigns, like a Cabinet secretary or high profile WH staffer.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:59 amI’m pretty sure Trump is done with future politics.
Hawley would probably try to run for President at some point, but this will be an albatross… he’ll likely stay being one of MO’s Senator for a long time though.
I don’t understand Cruz… you’d think this’ll kill his future ambitions, but he can probably win his election in TX.
My hope is that after yesterday, “Trumpism” as a movement is relegated to a fringe group with very little power going forward.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:00 am> Their deplatforming of Trump at this juncture is as transparently disingenuous as Lindsay Graham’s.
Well, sure. I’m not saying this to praise them, i’m saying this to try to predict the future. 🙂
But I will say it was very nice to hear silence from Trump yesterday afternoon and last night.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:02 am@24 please see my response in @21.
Does that clarify where I’m coming from?
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:02 amJerry’s Nadlers: yes, Trump has a large fan base, who he has gaslit into supporting the overthrow of the constitutional order in the name of protecting it.
That’s not a good thing.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:03 amThe leaders? yes.
but what about this:
My wife’s eldery moron of an aunt took a bus to DC to protest yesterday. She’s a living FacebookForwardsfromGrandma. She also retired from the state police after 30 years on the force. Based on her FB feed she went there, shouted in support of lies she’ll never accept are lies, and went back to her hotel room to assure her small social media following that everything was peaceful where she was at and that Antifa is probably to blame for any violence.
Here’s what i believe.
-She’s nuts, but has made many positive contributions to the world.
-She had every right to do what she did.
-She had no direct role in any crime and has no direct knowledge of it.
-her presence there encouraged those who were criminal.
If you’ll stipulate that I’ve presented her fairly and accurately what do you feel her moral culpability is?
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:05 amI think it’s a mistake to minimize what happened. Whether the protesters didn’t have a plan, were unorganized once they broke into the Capitol, and seemed only interested in photo-ops doesn’t matter. The fact is, they are true believers who were willing to put their lives, their families, their livelihoods, and (in an ironic way) their freedom on the line because of a narcissist who can’t take “no” for answer egged them on.
But here’s the really scary part: Trump was absolutely right when he said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” These people were willing to give up everything for their cult leader. And for everyone who showed up physically yesterday at the Capitol, you know there are thousands more that were there in spirit. So yes, what happened should be taken seriously. And those Congressmembers who are still committed to Trump, and made excuses and/or attempted to justify yesterday need to be removed or at the very least, censured.
Is there any greater red flag than when an elected official acknowledges (by their actions) that their loyalty is no longer to the Constitution but rather to a very delusional, self-aggrandizing, and unhinged individual? We should have known this would be the inevitable outcome of Trump’s post-election disintegration. He’s been fomenting this for a long time. He has been preparing his forces to sacrifice for his sake. And they willingly responded to his call.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:05 amI actually support more scrupulous rules governing elections and voting…..and if the GOP wants to encourage or require states to adopt such rules, that’s great and merits committee hearings and serious due diligence. But right now is not the time to do this. The GOP had its opportunity to challenge and modify the rules of this past election before the election happened. We are now engaged in post-hoc rationalization…without benefit of serious evidence. I have no respect for the 120 representatives that are playing games with our democracy to either appease Trump or dance for his supporters. I always believed Cruz was self-serving…but thought that there was some intellectual integrity there. I would have a hard time voting for him if he ever becomes the nominee.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:12 amYes. It’s a big deal but been fermenting for decades:
“They are in a terminal panic. They hear the shouts of the peasants from over the hill. All the knights and barons will be riding into the castle pulling up the drawbridge in a minute. All the peasants are coming with pitchforks. We’re going to take this over the top.” – Pat Buchanan, 1996
Where was America’s Boris Yeltsin?
Where were the ‘leaders,’ left and right, arms crossed, standing shoulder to shoulder on the Capitol steps shouting ‘STOP THIS!’ Instead, they ran and hid and gave pretty speeches late at night, safely protected when the dust settled. No Franklins; no Adams, no Washingtons, no Jeffersons or Lincolns in this pack of weasels. Even the plagiarist-elect- who is fast becoming a comma in the book of life– was safe and far away in Wilmington. The leadership vacuum in America has never been so stark.
And Big Media was utterly despicable yesterday.
Safe in their security guarded TV studios, far from the maddening crowd, clucking away, opinionating a la Jake The Tapper about coups and domestic terrorists and so on. Genuine journalists would have grabbed a flack jacket and rushed to the streets to cover the story. No Murrows, no Cronkites, no Amanpours in this bunch of millionaire teleprompter readers- but Anderson Cooper had no problems in days past, stripping down to a wet T-shirt for windblown reports in a cat-5 hurricane grasping a hotwired mike for his reel.
Had a single senator or Congresscritter showed an ounce of courage and pulled a gutsy Yeltsin, they’d have been your next party leader or president. But as Pierre Delecto discovered, you cannot lead from behind.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:12 amI don’t believe that Trump has given up. We’re going to be in for a tense 13 more days. I wish for the 25th Amendment solution, but I doubt Pence will consider it or muster a majority of the cabinet if he did.
Trump’s statement that there will be an orderly transition on January 20 is meaningless. First, it comes from Trump, for crying out loud. Second, it could as easily mean what Mike Pompeo said, that there will be an orderly transition to a second Trump administration; and Third, that’s how Trump’s supporters are reading it.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:20 amIf you’ll stipulate that I’ve presented her fairly and accurately what do you feel her moral culpability is?
Well, the Nuremberg Principles make collective guilt a crime against humanity, and I will follow the law. If she did not knowingly conspire or aid and abet the traitors, we’ll just mark her down as Fifth Column and keep an eye on her for overt seditious activity in the future.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:26 amThis guy (bd6c49) smells like the troll who polluted yesterday’s thead.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:35 amIt’s nomad’s daily.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:36 amI’ve always been mystified that so many otherwise intelligent people didn’t find that statement disturbing from a presidential candidate, and aren’t at all bothered that the response from this followers has been “Heck yeah.” They like to tout Trump’s “candor” when it suits them, and when it doesn’t, they pretend it’s all merely “style,” and that he’s not really showing us what he is.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:38 amThis guy (bd6c49) smells like the troll who polluted yesterday’s thead.
Yeah, it’s the same joke (sic). He’s left more than half a dozen comments already under different noms here and on the previous thread.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:40 am“they are true believers who were willing to put their lives, their families, their livelihoods, and (in an ironic way) their freedom on the line”
Which the American Revolutionaries were willing to do and no one in Congress was. So they’re automatically better people who I’d rather have in my new national order than whatever corporate toadies exist in Congress today.
So you are equating George Washington, et. al. with people who believe that the Democratic political establishment (as well as miscellaneous celebrities and Chief Justice John Roberts) are a group of satanic-worshipping pedophiles operating out of the (non-existent) basement of a pizzeria? That Trump was “recruited by top military generals to run for president in 2016 in order to break up this criminal conspiracy, end its control of politics and the media, and bring its members to justice?”
Oooookay…..
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:40 amThe hearings were fair. The decisions were based on the law. Almost all of the complaints could have been brought before the election, in which case the merits would have been heard on an expedited basis. But they were held until after the election, which is disfavored in election cases for very good reason: it leaves judges in the position of holding that because of technical illegalities on the part of election officers, *citizens votes will be thrown out even though the citizens did nothing wrong except follow the rules as the elections offices explained them*.
The rioting has been whipped up by a bunch of prominent individuals who are *lying through their teeth* for the intent of whipping up passion and disrupting the orderly transfer of power.
The people who believe the lies aren’t to blame, although I wish they’d be better about actually investigating the law at issue. The people who are whipping up crowd fury over rank nonsense, however, *are* to blame. And they belong in jail.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:41 amTime123, your aunt may very well be guilty of being ignorant about the election fraud accusations and guilty of falling prey to Trump’s con, but exercising her right to peaceably assemble and register her displeasure with whatever or whoever….seems pretty morally neutral. If she genuinely hoped that people would storm the Capitol or encouraged them in any way, then the story shifts. The people that knew better about what was going on and didn’t so anything to stop it have some moral culpability.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:46 amI agree with every word, Pat — except perhaps the literally part on the tarring and feathering.
What makes this worse than BLM and the Dems’ overly indulgent response to it is that a psychopath holds the powers and responsibilities of the presidency, and a substantial part of the electorate reveres him as God’s anointed and fantasizes about a civil war to keep him in power, while too many people who ought to be more thoughtful and responsible are encouraging them and humoring the psychopath, or at least making excuses and resorting to “it’s not so bad when we do it” arguments.
Is it really so unthinkable for Trump apologists to admit that maybe NeverTrump got something right about Trump’s character and mentality — after years of demanding that Trump-skeptics should apologize to them for questioning Trump’s fitness?
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:49 amLol @ Troll
You sound ridiculous.
Leviticus (efada1) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:50 amQAnon Is Trumpism Now
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:52 am……
….[T]he underlying ideas behind the movement may be more influential than ever. QAnon believers have toiled away, on the anonymous message board 8chan and on the far-right social media platforms Parler and Gab, to make 2021 their year. With just weeks to go before Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, the conspiracy club has worked feverishly to supply the faulty research and nonsensical allegations allowing President Donald Trump to keep claiming a false victory.
……
And while their research is, nearly without fail, unserious and fantastical, it has formed the bedrock of tossed-out lawsuits from QAnon-linked lawyers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, padded the daily broadcasts on One America News and Newsmax, and formed the basis of Trump’s own demands to overturn the election. Nearly every piece of supposed evidence cited by Trump’s merry band of election thieves—the so-called Kraken that was supposed to dazzle the courts into flipping states from blue to red—was concocted, augmented, or at least boosted by his legion of QAnon faithful. And Trump himself has been enthusiastically boosting them.
……
On the recently leaked call between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Trump voices all manner of theories pushed by QAnon. From a supposed “professional vote scammer” to selectively edited videos claiming to show fraudulent ballots arriving, the president regurgitated repeatedly debunked conspiracies that largely originated on 8chan and the Gateway Pundit, a far-right conspiracist site.
…….
QAnon’s belief in nonsense hasn’t stopped it from reaching the president thus far, although it does likely limit its popular potential. Q also faces a more pressing problem, in that they have asked QAnon followers to “trust the plan” one too many times. As various predictions have come and gone without action—Hillary Clinton still walks around, unshackled; no widespread deep-state child trafficking ring has ever been uncovered; John F. Kennedy Jr. did not reappear—one prediction has been crucially important: that Donald Trump would be reelected president to carry on the mission. When Biden takes office, Q’s credibility as messenger of the forces for good may be irreparably damaged among their followers.
……
QAnon, as it exists now, may be done for. But, in many ways, that doesn’t matter. QAnon’s conspiracies, pseudo-research methods, imaginary connections forged in corkboard and string, and belief in an omnipresent deep state will live on. QAnon has infected a constellation of media outlets, which run information that doesn’t need to be true so much as it needs to feed the Kraken. A caucus of congressional and Senate Republicans will refuse to accept the results of the election, predicated on claims that do not stand up to a moment’s scrutiny. Millions of Americans have bought the notion that a wide-ranging conspiracy altered the outcome of the election. They all may as well embroider the letter Q on their coats.
…….
They have fewer votes than Biden’s both at the popular vote level and at the annoyingly necessary Electoral College. The fact that you don’t believe this doesn’t make it any less true.
Therefore they are the noisy weird, deluded few demanding the majority of the country cater to their wounded feelings.
And I agree with the original post. This is a big deal. A coup doesn’t have to be well organized or well managed. A disorganized mob ousting the government from power is a coup just as much as an organized one. A few thousand people yesterday stopped our government from functioning through threats of physical violence (Note the gallows erected on the lawn, the breaking down of doors, the shouts of “where are they” of people walking through the galleries, the guy pictured with the bundle of hand ties).
This is worse than burning down a store or a police building. Those are personal tragedies or local problems that can be easily fixed. Wrecking the government itself, and substituting a mob for representative government is something different.
Victor (4959fb) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:54 amUnlike Trump, I admit that I am not without sin. But I really can’t think of what “great sins” I have committed that caused Trump to arise.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:57 amI’ve never held a position of political power. I’m much further from being a wealthy elite than I would like to be. So was voting Republican over the years my great sin that caused Trumpers to hate me so much?
The Capitol is not quite like the Bastille. However, as a result of yesterday’s insurrection, it may look like it in the future.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:57 amThey should put this passage on the LSAT and if you can comprehend it you immediately get a spot on the Supreme Court.
johnnyagreeable (63b237) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:03 amJerry’s Nadslers is currently in moderation until P decides what to do.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:03 amRad, I wouldn’t expect much wisdom from old Nads. Looks like he’s trolling for attention….maybe someone here mentioned JedState…..and that sucked him in from the ether….kinda like Beetlejuice
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:05 amVictor, once again, I may disagree with you on many policy issues, but I agree that people who claim to speak for “We the People” ought to be trying harder to persuade a clear majority of voters to agree with them, instead of pretending that votes against them are somehow un-American and illegitimate.
I think there’s a good argument for making sure that policies best for metropolises don’t completely dominate rural and small-town regions with their different needs. A less powerful federal government would serve that purpose.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:06 amSo there will be a metro stop and a shiny newish opera house in its place?
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:08 amCan Trump Be Stopped?
…..
Talk of removing a president is easy. But getting rid of one is hard, as it should be in a constitutional republic with a well-established system for electing its leaders. Any decision to remove a president is also fraught with peril. ……
……
……After seeing the destruction and terror that the mob wrought, Trump released a video and tweet justifying and effectively condoning its actions, while at the same time meekly calling for peace.
There is little controversy about Trump’s culpability in the day’s events. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, told FoxNews, “We just had a violent mob assault the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent us from carrying out our constitutional duty…. There’s no question the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob. He lit the flame.” Senator Mitt Romney said, “What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States.” …..
…….
With his incitement of the attack on the Capitol building, Trump cleared the hurdle of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which, along with treason and bribery, is a constitutional trigger for impeachment. Articles of impeachment could be finalized within minutes and voted on with minimal debate. The Senate could then immediately convene to try the president. The Constitution requires “ the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present” for conviction. It does not, however, require a lengthy trial or specific procedure, even though Congress has developed elaborate rules to govern—and elongate—the impeachment and trial process. The Senate played fast and loose with its own rules to facilitate Trump’s acquittal a year ago and could do the same in the other direction if its members had the will to secure a quick conviction.
But therein lies the main rub. The House and Senate would need to meet to change their rules and allow an expedited process. Could it be done? Yes. Would it be easy? Not so much.
……
Section 4 of the (25th) amendment creates a process by which the chief executive can be declared “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The drafters of the 25th Amendment meant it to apply more to cases of true presidential incapacity—like a massive stroke or a coma—than to instances of very bad judgment. But because the relevant triggering criterion, the president’s inability “to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” is undefined in the amendment, a president who has proved himself persistently unable to perform the duties of the office can warrant Section 4’s application, even without obvious physical impairment. …… Law professor and 25th Amendment expert Brian Kalt explained in 2019 two scenarios in which activating Section 4 might be appropriate:
……We believe that Trump’s unhinged post-election behavior, his manifest inability or unwillingness for weeks to distinguish reality from fiction about the results of the election, and his detachment from exercising the basic responsibilities of the office, would meet the “unable to perform” standard of the 25th Amendment. (The definitional issue is almost certainly one on which the vice president and principal executive officers would have the final say, with both houses of Congress playing a role in the event of a presidential challenge; the matter almost certainly cannot be reviewed in court.)
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:12 am……
……Wednesday’s terror—against the background of Trump’s incitement and his other untoward post-election behavior—goes beyond anything Pence has seen before (that we yet know of). Events could move him to put the country’s well-being before his subservience to the president. After all, unlike Trump’s actions in the Ukraine affair, his newest actions incited active insurrection.
……
We are now in that extreme situation. Trump has the hard power to take vengeful, destructive acts against the Cabinet and the country that could make things much, much worse. These are uncharted and very dangerous waters.
So there will be a metro stop and a shiny newish opera house in its place?
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:14 amNo, but there will probably be even more restrictive access, higher fencing or walls, and probably a cordon sanitaire around the building preventing access to the East and West Porticos. People will only be able to view it from a distance.
Agreed.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail over the long term. If Trump would have won we would have seen BLM/Antifa riots and not just at the capital. This isn’t a question for today but at some point, there is a greater than 0% chance that BLM/Antifa or MAGA, or whatever they turn into, will not like an election. Either way, the domestic part of enemies foreign and domestic isn’t going away anytime soon. But suggesting that elected representatives should be while at the same time demanding that people vote instead of resorting to violence is a contradiction.
Agreed. I think 2024 will be a lot different from 2020 and not just because of COVID. I do not share your optimism.
These aren’t the same thing. Yesterday wasn’t justified and saying that it was the inevitable result of isn’t an attempt to justify it. These issues aren’t going to go away if we can’t explain and discuss them. What you’ve described as a Big F*cking Deal is just part of a Big F*cking iceberg.
This is good to hear. I remember a time when I was trying to explain the danger posed by BLM/Antifa and the door that was being opened. It seemed like a lonely comment section.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:16 amHere’s my concern. Twice in the last 20 years the Dems have won the popular vote and lost the electoral college. Twice. They legitimately had an argument that the electoral college was undemocratic (little d) and thwarted the will of the people. However, they basically shrugged and said, “well, this is how we do things” and the process went on and the R was sworn in as president.
What if the next D (or even R, hey, it could happen…) who wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college is a Trump-like demagogue? The Women’s March (hah, hah, the ladies wore pink hats) in DC was 470,000 people. It was the biggest march on Washington ever. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. What if they had done this? What if, say, 10% of them had attempted to violently invade the Capitol. 47,000 people. What if next time they do? What happened yesterday sets a Very Bad Example and people, especially people in power, who don’t treat it Very Seriously should not be surprised if next time things are worse than having to retreat to the legislative “undisclosed location.”
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:18 am@62 — I was just indulging my elitist pretensions. Some years ago I had free use of an apartment not far from the Bastille Opera for a touristy visit. (The owner has since passed away, so no more freebies for me in that area.)
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:20 amRadegunda,
I agree with many of your points when you comment, but it’s true we have our policy differences. I have always found it hard to equate “allowed to lead the government because they represent the majority of the people” with “completely dominate”. The principle of representative democracy is that the majority of the people should be able to elect their leaders, subject to restrictions on power to protect the rights of the minority. That is different from the minority should be allowed to lead the government because they are afraid of not having their needs completely met by the majority.
But we are agreed that anything is better than having a weird deluded mob lead, or even just prevent governing.
And gnome? Why are mail in votes not votes? When has that ever been true?
As for your theory that the mob we saw yesterday represent “the people”, well they may be similar to your friends and family, but not to anybody I know or that the people of my neighborhood, city or state would choose to lead them.
Victor (4959fb) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:21 amElaine Chao, Trump’s transportation secretary, resigns along with other officials
Elaine Chao, the secretary of transportation, is resigning after President Trump’s incitement of a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, she announced in a letter posted on Twitter.
…..
In the letter, she said that she would leave her post on Jan. 11 and that her office would cooperate with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s nominee for transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
“Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed,” Ms. Chao wrote. “As I’m sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”
……
The acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Tyler Goodspeed, also resigned on Thursday. Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s former acting chief of staff, resigned his post as special envoy to Northern Ireland on Wednesday night, and the president’s deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, stepped down as well, a person familiar with his decision said Thursday.
“The events of yesterday made my position no longer tenable,” Mr. Goodspeed said in a brief morning interview, after informing the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, of his decision.
…..
…..John Costello, one of the country’s most senior cybersecurity officials, also resigned Wednesday, telling associates that the violence on Capitol Hill was his “breaking point” and, he hoped, “a wake up call.”
…..
Outside of government, a Pennsylvania lawyer who worked for the Trump campaign withdrew on Thursday, saying in a court filing that his services had been used “to perpetrate a crime.”
The lawyer, Jerome Marcus, has been an attorney on a case in federal court involving the access of Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia.
In a statement, Mr. Marcus said the case he filed and others like it “were used by President Trump to incite people to violence. I refer specifically to his urging people to come to Washington for a ‘wild’ protest. I want absolutely no part of that.”
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:22 amA point that Trumpers resolutely refuse to acknowledge. Instead, they claim that the ineffectual “resistance” and media criticism and stubborn Never Trumpism justify them in trying something worse — which is bad in itself, besides encouraging more escalation in response.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:25 amBiden has selected Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for Labor and Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo for Commerce.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:27 amSchumer to sack top Senate security official after pro-Trump riot
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:30 amThis was not a coup attempt. This was the the result of liars lying to each other.
Copied from another thread: (with slight editing)
The way I make sense of it, President Trump’s goal yesterday seems to have been to postpone Congress’ announcement of the winner for another night and a day – till Thursday night.
He had already had allies in Congress postponing it by 12 hours at least by challenging 6 state’s votes, but this would only have taken him till early this morning. Giuliani left a recorded message in which it is clear he was going for at least 10 challenges.
Now what would that get him?
Somebody must have been telling him, that that would give him more time to lobby state legislatures, and supply them with evidence, which they were just, just about to get, that would cause them to replace the certified electors with other electors.
That was Trump’s strategy: To get one more extra day and replace the electors.
This was incredibly wrong in multiple ways: There wasn’t any such evidence, of course; the state legislatures were probably mostly not in session; the state legislatures wouldn’t do it; and, by Act of Congress, the Electors had to vote on December 14; and a state couldn’t choose new electors after that.
It certainly couldn’t choose them, and re-choose them any time up to point where Congress counted the votes. And there was federal law as to the time of choosing the electors.
Yet, reading between the lines, that was what Trump was thinking.
This strategy is so at variance with all facts and all laws and provisions of the U.S. constitution that whoever sold Trump on this had to be lying
And I say that if Trump was lied to about strategy, he was probably lied to also about tactics.
He wanted the demonstration to gain a little bit more time.
He expected the demonstration to be peaceful, (because he knew there could be a backlash from a violent one) but, because of their numbers, to scare wavering Republican members of Congress about their prospects for re-election, and get them to vote to reject electors or at least to postpone their acceptance. (Trump is very much impressed by crowd size and doesn’t pay attention to how random or typical a sample a crowd is)
The people who organized the demonstration had their own motives, and it wasn’t actually trying to gain for Trump a second term. I can’t quite figure out yet what they were; maybe more information would help; but it could have been, in part, to make themselves more important and get more money.
Diminishing the Republican Party could be part of it too. Less competition.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:31 amVictor, I don’t really disagree with that. Maybe I have some disagreements on the point of federalism — how much should be dictated at the national level and how much at the state and local levels. For the most part, it has been philosophical conservatives who make the case for more local control of policy, which allows more of the population to feel truly represented more of the time. But on particular issues, or whenever it’s expedient, enthusiasm for federalism can flip-flop — because people who lean to the left don’t want too many conservative policies imposed on them, and people who lean to the right sometimes do want to impose their policies on the whole country.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:33 am@71-
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:34 amGiuliani to Senator: ‘Try to Just Slow it Down’
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:05 am
I’d say none but these don’t seem to be the rules. After Charlottesville everyone there was culpable because of reasons. When the BLM riots broke out I asked here when the Charlottesville rules would apply to BLM/Antifa. I was basically told never and for the most part that has been the case.
So, the rules as they stand now are that if it’s on the right everyone that doesn’t denounce it is complicit and the rules on the left are, let’s just say, not the same. Now, you’re free to apply the BLM/Antifa rules to your aunt-in-law but someone else in a different thread implied (and maybe this one. I’ve just been skimming) that was unprincipled.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:37 am“Why are mail in votes not votes? When has that ever been true?”
At this juncture, they’re too easy to fake.
Prove your assertion.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:37 amOne example of the federalism issue: There was no national Department of Education until the Carter administration. Certainly there was education across the land before then (though Mississippi for a while had shamefully ended compulsory education rather than integrate its schools). But if any conservative says that the U.S. Dept. of Ed. hasn’t done anything to lift educational levels and maybe the responsibility should be returned more to states and localities, the Dem response is that Republicans are against education. Which is a nonsensical argument.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:41 amI don’t think Trump actually incited an attack on the Capitol building. That assumes facts not evidence.
What cleared the hurdle for me was his attempting (and succeeding) in interfering with a session of Congress (by other than pure petitioning or horsetrading)
The only problem is proving that was his intention in sending the demonstrators to the Capitol.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:41 amRadegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:41 am
and remember Anita Hill testified that she followed Clarence Thomas to his new job, because Ronald Reagan was talking about abolishing the Department of Education. Which would not have eliminated her job, or most jobs there. Which proved that she was a liar. And had gotten her lies from some Democrat.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:45 am@67. Translation:
Realizing her usefulness in her Cabinet perch to her husband has expired, Mrs. McConnell quits.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:46 amThis has been brewing for years.
Democrats and the media vilified and smeared Tea Party people who thought they could be heard by being principled and polite, cleaning up after themselves and following all the rules.
The Democrats led by Vice President elect Harris contributed bail money for insurrectionists accused of looting, burning, attacking Federal Buildings and personnel.
That sends a message that if you want to be heard, you need to attack and destroy, throw a tantrum in a safe spce like a park, a city bock or oh hell, set downtown DC on fire after looting it.
Yesterday white people who are not Antifa felt disenfranchised and acted out in their own way. They took it directly to the legislature, they tried on a unique method and failed. History shows us that what they needed was an invitation by Code Pink or guns like the Puerto Ricans who invaded and shot four legislators and were then pardoned by Carter, Clinton and Obama.
Its an extremely dangerous mindset to foment, and even worse to let run within yourself.
The mindset that you will insist on equal treatment outside the law. It’s a mindset I’ve struggled with playing sports when the officating seemed disconnected from the rules and even handedness. Bad referees often see players take things into their own hands and the harsh fouling that occurs is at its worse when it no longer is about the “rules”, its about reprisal for any appearance of attempted injury. The people in the arena of play decide they are entitled to enforce their own individual code of justice and their fans start pitched battles that live on for years and years.
Trump was a bad leader yesterday in part because he is a terrible loser. Even if he was cheated, he needed to do better. (I’ll let you guys flesh that out… one of the reasons I stopped coming by much was because it was the same old list post after post…. sure I disagreed with some, but it was the repetitiveness that was like a dripping faucet) Biden…. well, he picked one of the worst people in his party (Harris) for VP, she applauded rioters and looters and sprung them to commit more crime so he’s an unprincipled man for choosing her and gets zero *bleeps* from me and is disqualified.
Nancy Pelosi is a bad leader. Instead of chastising people in her House for cheering on looters and arsonists she stood with them. (I’ll let you guys handle the GOP side of guys like Cruz and Hawley who seem to be intent on laying out bonafides with the 75M who voted for Trump looking ahead to 2024.)
The media has been awful at times. During the Summer of Insurrection, the media decided not to use the words riot, looting, arson, criminal etc. The video shots of media people calling demonstrations “mostly peaceful” with fires blazing and people assaulting each other over flat screens in the background was poor leadership regardless to if “it’s the media, what do you expect?”. Its even worse leadership to suddenly resurrect the thesarus and start using words like riot again. If yesterday was a riot, what the hell was Ferguson?
You know what I’m really afraid of? People of all stations deciding that if they want to be heard, they need to loot, burn Walmart, Target and Piggly Wiggly and any and all private businesses. Cops are the enemy to everyone but the ruling class and their uber wealthy oligarchs.
I’m in a extremely bad mood. Yesterday made me hate everyone from bad leaders down to the pompous pious moralizers. Thanks for the opportunity to vent.
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:59 amAw, good grief! https://thedispatch.com/p/giuliani-to-senator-try-to-just-slow Left the message to sabotage the count on wrong Senator’s voicemail.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:02 pmWell….there goes Biden pouring gasoline….
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:10 pmI’ve looked the other way or defended Trump about a lot of things, but not now. What happened yesterday was indefensible. Whether or not Trump actually intended for there to be violence, if you’re smart enough to be President, you have to know that some people are going to act on your inflammatory comments. There can’t be any excuses for this. If Trump had any decency (now that’s a counterfactual if there ever was one) he’d resign immediately.
I disagree completely with the objections brought by Hawley and wish they had not raised them. I don’t think it makes them bad people or unfit for office to have raised them, because if they actually believed in their position, they arguably had a duty to raise the objections. Maybe this is too fine a distinction, but I don’t fault someone per se for raising a point and making a record, even if I disagree with the point and think the result they’re urging would be harmful.
Maybe I missed it, but why aren’t a few hundred of the protestors in jail today? Did people like the guy pictured at the presiding desk (is that the proper term?)of the Senate just walk away? If you want to commit a crime maybe you should go to the Capitol grounds to do it, secure that you won’t be arrested.
For the criminal lawyers out there, should the felony murder rule apply to the ringleaders of the protest with respect to the woman who was shot and killed? It’s a tragedy that a life was lost over all this.
RL formerly in Glendale (fda61c) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:16 pmAlso a riot? But not set off when the president encouraged his supporters to use force to halt the peaceful transfer of power?
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:17 pmCorrect answer is that we don’t know yet.
Glib answer is “white people get treated differently”
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:18 pmI agree it’s a big deal, but I disagree with Senator Schumer who said it was a second Pearl Harbor. It is not even a third Pearl Harbor (how could he forget 9/11).
What happened is the American nightmare — the realization that “it could happen here” — and that there is a considerable force that wants that. That their would-be Emperor is Donald Trump is hard to understand, but whatever.
Had they not entered the building, it would just have been another demonstration and probably most of the attendees thought that was what it was. But apparently there were some who were planning the incursion and had serious plans for hostages and demands.
Ted Cruz and the others (including an unbelievable 140 Representatives) have jumped the shark-filled Rubicon. There is no coming back. As we go forward, I hope the consequences are such that they find it necessary to leave the Republican Party, or the Party leaves them. This is the kind of thing that is never ever forgotten.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:21 pmAll of this!
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:21 pmhttps://buzzchronicles.com/CodyyyGardner/b/politics/6807/
What should happen? Let’s ask Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:26 pm@71 Trump is not stupid. He’s a very skilled marketer and always has been. He might have opportunistically latched onto a protest planned by someone else and in the end he might’ve bitten off more than he could chew, but he knew what he was saying and doing.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:26 pmduly elected state senator whose opponent’s challenges have all been rejected by the state’s highest court
Similar challenges had been rejected in federal elections, but the somewhat different state-election issues had not been and are currently at issue in a lower court. That there was no judgement IN THIS CASE was the reason used to leave the seat undecided for now.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:28 pm@83. Has anybody asked the plagiarist-elect what color his lawn jockey is yet?
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:29 pm@83 — How is he pouring gasoline? Is Biden suggesting that the Trumpers should dial it up so maybe they’ll be treated rougher? Is he suggesting that BLM people should break into the Capitol and see what happens? In what way is he encouraging more lawlessness?
Trumpers have been claiming that their rioters are being treated badly just because they love Trump. Top Trump apologists are busy with their whataboutisms, implying that seditionists on their side should get indulgence because BLM. So who is really pouring gasoine?
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:30 pmWhembly,
Here’s what Trump said
Our media is not free. It’s not fair. It suppresses thought. It suppresses speech, and it’s become the enemy of the people. It’s become the enemy of the people. It’s the biggest problem we have in this country. No third world countries would even attempt to do what we caught them doing and you’ll hear about that in just a few minutes. Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer, and we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. We’re going to have to fight much harder and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. If he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our constitution. Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard
Our brightest days are before us, our greatest achievements still wait. I think one of our great achievements will be election security because nobody until I came along, had any idea how corrupt our elections were. And again, most people would stand there at 9:00 in the evening and say, “I want to thank you very much,” and they go off to some other life, but I said, “Something’s wrong here. Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happened.” And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.
Looks like incitement to me.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:30 pmA crucial difference that too many people refuse to adcknowledge.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:32 pmThere were people roaming our streets demanding loyalty oaths to Trump
Trump has a flag. Really, he has a flag and it was on display everywhere yesterday. This is straight-up Fuhrerprizip (the loyalty oath doesn’t surprise).
Sometimes they superimpose his image over the real flag, something that’s even more scary. One Nation under Trump. Yikes.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:33 pm@93 Biden is gaslighting America on racial issues.
Not something we need right now.
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:36 pmThis is the central myth that sustains Trumpism: that only Donald Trump could save America in 2016, and that America is finished when Donald Trump is no longer president. And a lot of people believe it.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:36 pmTrump has opened an account on Parler — a fringe figure retreating to a fringe platform.
If only that were true. The real worry about his Twitter account was that it would allow him to organize his troops for the inauguration or sooner. Parler may be a fringe, but it’s ALL Trump’s fringe.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:36 pm@94 Not sure what you are trying to address here?
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:37 pmThe people there seemed to think they’d be treated differently for some reason.
“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. [she was violating curfew] They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”
A man, possibly her husband, comforted her: “Don’t worry, honey. We showed them today. We showed them what we’re all about.”
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:38 pmMore apostasy: David Bernstein @ Instapundit
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:39 pmBetween Trump and Rudy and DJTJ yesterday, I think it’s fair to take a hard look at incitement. As they say, Manson didn’t stab anyone.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:40 pmThere’s no doubt he’s considering pardoning himself.
Fair assumption. All these resignations are reputation management, not patriotism. If Trump has crossed the line, and someone has any power, they should use that to try to fix it. Quitting now is really pathetic. Be fired if you need to be.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:40 pmMy point, that I completely failed to make, was that in this case the violence appears to be at the direction of a political leader. I think Trump crossed the line from heated rhetoric or instilling passion to calling for unlawful action from a group of people right in front of him.
sorry that I didn’t spell that out.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:41 pmhad smartphones in their hands the whole time.
Just the thing to have when committing felonies. Let’s see if Google and Apple protect Trump’s minions the way they did al Queda’s.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:42 pm(John) Danforth calls his support of Hawley the ‘worst mistake’ of his life
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:44 pm@106 Oh….ok, I follow you now.
What did you think that I was disagreeing with you on?
I did say Trump bears responsibility for this.
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:46 pmActing Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen vowed that pro-Trump rioters who entered the U.S. Capitol would “face the full consequences of their actions under the law,” and those consequences could include being charged under President Trump’s executive order authorizing up to 10 years in prison for “injury of federal property.”
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:48 pmFirst of all, the immoral sentiment that “we get to do what the worst people on the other side have done, and in fact we get to escalate it!” is not unique to the right.
It’s worse than that. It’s often “we get to do what we hyperbolically accuse the other side of doing.”
Police “murder” black people? Hey, black people murdering police is OK! Right?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:51 pmI think we agree in a large part. Where I think we disagree is that I haven’t seen evidence that Dem leaders, or leaders of BLM (2 different groups) have made similar statements that lead directly to violence.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:57 pm@112 Um…. how ‘bout the fact that democrats unanimously opposed the house resolution that condemned the riots after Floyd’s death?
They had every opportunity to turn the temperature down, but refused.
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:03 pm“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.”
No one can tell me that if they had been shooting cops and burning buildings they would have been treated as they were. And one of them WAS shot to death for attempting to enter an area under strict protection.
Unlike the BLM protestors, everyone who was caught inside the building or was identifiable from any security camera, cellphone image or social media post (including deletions) is going to feel the full majesty of the law. With black DC jurors who don’t particularly care for Proud Boys.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:04 pmguns like the Puerto Ricans who invaded and shot four legislators and were then pardoned by Carter, Clinton and Obama.
After decades in prison. Not a particularly good citation for your side.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:06 pm@110 — Law and Order!
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:10 pmI think that those who did not enter the building will not be prosecuted in any way, and those that did will be prosecuted in every way. The first is covered by the first amendment, the second is not.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:11 pmPer the boss, I’ve gone through and deleted the trolls, and they will be banned.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:11 pmRefusing to turn the temperature down was bad. Choosing to dial the temperature up, from the office of president, is unquestionably worse.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:12 pm@113. “Get in their faces”. – Barack Obama
“Make them uncomfortable “. – AOC
“…push back…tell them they’re not welcome anywhere….”. – Maxine Waters
“They’re (BLM rioters) not going to stop. Everyone be where. VP Harris
“When they go high, you go low”. – Michelle Obama
“When they bring a knife to a fight. We bring a gun”. – Barack Obama
That’s just on top of my head Time….
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:12 pmComment numbering isn’t useful today, given the Troll.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:12 pmUh my previous post should be directed to @104 & @105.
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:13 pm83. RL formerly in Glendale (fda61c) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:16 pm
The police chief said the first rder of business was restoring order (and trying to arrest people makes that more difficult) The situation was already out of control when they got there.
Later, after 6 pm, they arrested people who were both curfew violators and on the Capitol grounds.
That was in the Senate. Yes he did walk away. Before the police got there. They’ve put out BOLOs for some people (Be On the Lookout for) and are asking people who recognize some of these individuals to call the police – their local police is OK. I think some members of the media know who some of these people are.
If you commit a crime as part of a mob yu are much less likely yo get arrested. That is true. That’s why loters form and act under the cover of mobs.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:15 pmRadegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:12 pm
Not disputing that it’s worse, but stuff like this doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:17 pm““When they go high, you go low”. – Michelle Obama”
Really?
Davethulhu (95ea9f) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:19 pm@60 —
That is not my theory at all! On the contrary, I’m pointing to their fallacious pretension to speak for “the people.”
Most of my neighbors are about as from being Trumpers as you could find. No one in my close family is a Trump fan, though I do have relatives who voted for him. I have actually let acquaintances go on hold because I didn’t want to get into arguments about Trump.
I utterly reject the idea that the D.C. mob represents “we the people.”
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:20 pm@117 whoops got that one wrong.
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:24 pmRadegunda,
I did not mean that to apply to your comments, I was responding to underwear gnome. I’d have no problems with you and your better friends be part of any government of this country.
For others, Biden’s remarks about BLM came immediately after referring to a photo of hundreds of riot clad federal law enforcement lining the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during a BLM demonstration.
Contrast that with the scene from yesterday’s protest – a few police standing behind a low metal barrier.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1347028917685800961
Victor (4959fb) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:28 pm@60 — BTW, I have seen up close the handiwork of left-wing rioters, and I think too many Democrats have given them far too much indulgence, claiming that their grievances justify destroying the property and livelihoods of people who have done them no harm, or doing bodily injury, and that violence is their only way to “make their voices heard,” even though many of them are just enjoying the mayhem and the looting opportunities.
I don’t believe that left-wing rioting is a legitimate way of expressing the “voice of the people” or pursuing “justice.”
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:30 pmNor do I believe that the D.C. seditionists were patriots exercising their democratic rights. So I’m consistent on the point.
I think it’s wrong to broadly treat rioters alike without considering their underlying aims to some degree in assessing their equivalency.
I think the media has shamefully undersold the levels of violence and destruction that occurred, and I don’t doubt that some segment of those protestors were actual anarchists and wanted to cause destruction. They deserve condemnation and were too often treated with kid gloves.
But a lot of the protests also were aimed at things like police shootings / police accountability and reforms. How much overlap was there between the two groups and their aims?
That’s wkrth considering. It seems fairly cut and dry here. In this case, the people gathered to contest the process of declaring Biden the winner. That’s it. That was their complaint and that’s what they wanted to stop. And if they actually believed that they were treated unfairly, i.e. the election was stolen by fraud, then Trump and demagogues like Cruz bear responsibility for giving that impression when there’s no evidence of it.
johnnyagreeable (63b237) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:32 pmThanks Victor. I think I saw that at first, but then misread it when I went back again. I really should be doing other things right now, hence my haste!
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:33 pmI wouldn’t start charging those fools until Jan. 21st.
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:39 pmTrue. Best to use a name if specifically responding to or addressing another commenter.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:42 pmFirst, the Michelle Obama quote was “When they go low you go high” and means exercising restraint in the face of frustration.
Second, none of the rest of those were uttered to an angry crowd or resulted in immediate violent action. That would put the lines about get in their faces or bring a gun under the heading of heated rhetoric.
Third, in context Harris was talking about protests, not riots and has made clear that she doesn’t condone violence or riots.
Fourth, here’s AOC quote in full.
Trump made a clear call to violent, lawless action in support of his lie that the election was stolen. That’s nothing like the quotes above.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:48 pmTrue, Hoi, very True.
urbanleftbehind (f166fc) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:48 pmWhembly,
The people that marched, yelled and waved flags are peaceful protestors.
The people that stormed the capital are rioters and insurrectionists.
Both groups are motivated in support of a lie: That the election was determined by fraud.
Both groups undermine our democracy.
But I think the people that didn’t commit a crime aren’t guilty of a crime. They both deserve our contempt and scorn because of what they’re marching in support of, but in a free country people have a right to do horrible things that are deserving of scorn.
I think leaders who knew it was a lie, or should have done the work to find out before amplifying the lie, are guilty of encouraging the lawless behavior.
Now for BLM / Antifa
The people that marched, yelled and waved flags are peaceful protestors.
The people that destroyed property and robbed business rioters and looters.
Both groups are motivated in support of a idea: That police violence in America unjustly impacts non-white people.
Both groups have a point.
But I think the people that didn’t commit a crime aren’t guilty of a crime. They both deserve to be listened to to the extent you find their complaint credible, but even if you disagree in a free country people have a right to do protest for goals you disagree with.
I think leaders who who don’t speak out against the violence are guilty of encouraging the lawless behavior.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:58 pmRadegunda (20775b) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:12 pm
Where does choosing to dial the temperature up from the office of the president-elect rank?
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:58 pmFrosty, what did Biden say that would encourage the rightwing terrorists to commit more acts of violence? Since that’s the only group currently committing acts of violence.
If he’d made that point in the middle of a race riot I’d feel differently.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:01 pmWhat action are you talking about, be specific, cite your source?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:01 pmRIP Neil Sheehan (84).
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:02 pmPence expected to attend Biden’s inauguration
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:06 pmI utterly reject the idea that the D.C. mob represents “we the people.”
No non-random group does. They are a self-selected group with common grievances. But they do represent a section of the people. You many not normally run across them in daily life, but that does not mean they don’t exist, nor that their concerns are not real.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:07 pmOh, by the way, 4,100 Americans died yesterday, 3,700 the day before, and 3,005 as of 5:06PM EST today from the Covid.
That is still happening.
The response from the administration is still enough that Trump should be bounced on his ear via 25th/impeachment. And there is this, and Russia Russia Russia (Ukraine)…
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:07 pmPence expected to attend Biden’s inauguration
This brings up a picture of the normal protocol — the outgoing president rides with the president-elect to the ceremony in the same car. Would they frisk Trump? How many Secret Service agents would be there to prevent violence?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:10 pmState Department political appointee fired by White House after tweeting Trump was unfit for office
…..
“President Trump fomented an insurrectionist mob that attacked the Capitol today. He continues to take every opportunity to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” Gabriel Noronha, who worked on Iran at the State Department and was previously a staffer on Capitol Hill, tweeted. “These actions threaten our democracy and our Republic. Trump is entirely unfit to remain in office, and needs to go.”
Noronha also said that all government officials must uphold the constitution.
“All government officials swear to uphold and defend the constitution. That is where our loyalties must lie — not to any man or political party. @JoeBiden has won the election for President and we must all work together to rebuild our economy and defend our nation,” Noronha wrote in his second tweet.
……
Noronha was notified that he would be fired in a letter from the State Department liaison to the White House today, said a source familiar with the letter. He was given no explicit reason for his ouster, the source said.
Noronha’s bosses at the State Department did not object to him posting his opinion on his personal Twitter account, the sources said. It is unclear who at the White House made the decision to fire him.
Together his two tweets have received almost 30,000 retweets as of Thursday afternoon.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:11 pm………
This brings up a picture of the normal protocol — the outgoing president rides with the president-elect to the ceremony in the same car. Would they frisk Trump? How many Secret Service agents would be there to prevent violence?
Trump would ride in the trunk.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:13 pmJeez. What a nightmare scenario this is.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:13 pmTime123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 1:58 pm
Not so much and we’ve had this discussion before. Hands up don’t shoot is built on a lie. The BLM propaganda around Trayvon Martin has little basis in truth as well. Antifa is not motivated by hands up don’t shoot. They are allied with BLM because, like the marxism at the foundation of BLM, they are anti-capitalist.
Your first formulation is correct about BLM/Antifa. Both groups [BLM/Antifa] are motivated in support of a lie. Both groups [BLM/Antifa] undermine our democracy.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:18 pmThat’s a rather incomplete description of amendment.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:18 pm@140, Doesn’t really matter. Neither group had anything to do with the right wing terrorists that attacked the US capital yesterday. I just included that part to show how the formulation works in different circumstances.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:25 pmSomeone told me that 2021 was going to be better than 2020. Klink you idiot. 2021 has been the worst, still, it can’t get any worse…right?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:28 pmJeez. What a nightmare scenario this is.
I see that the Congress, in it usual display of courage, are hoping the the Cabinet do their dirty work for them. Won’t happen, and it’s really not what the 25th Amendment was all about anyway.
So, will the House move an article of impeachment? Will the Senate consider it post-haste? There is a chance that Trump might try to resign to stop a conviction from attainting him for life. The Senate could vote at any time. All that has to happen Constitutionally is that Roberts preside over a “trial.”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:42 pmKlink,
No matter what happens Trump will only be president until the 20th. What’s the wor… oh, wait.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:43 pmColonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:01 pm
I’m not sure who made you the citation police. This was mentioned earlier in the thread but here you go:
or here
This certainly isn’t an attempt to dial it down. Seems to me this is a pretty clear attempt to signal that BLM has been treated too harshly or that the people yesterday weren’t treated harshly enough. Maybe when he’s in charge BLM riots will get more acceptable treatment.
Time123 (457a1d) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:01 pm
Is it only a problem when someone incites right-wing violence? Because those aren’t the only groups “currently” committing acts of violence unless we’re defining “currently” vary narrowly.
One of the points made in the original post was that all of the violence we’ve seen over that last year was serious. Did we only make it to post 130 before you started hedging on that?
You’re also making a claim that I didn’t make. I didn’t claim Biden was directly “encouraging” specific violence. There is a lot of room between dialing the temperature up and encouraging or inciting.
Are you defending Biden’s remark? Do you think that is the sort of “Presidential” comment we’ve been missing for the last 4 years? Why did Biden need to bring BLM in at all?
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:57 pmSo Frosty, this is supposed to be Biden “turning up the heat”?
Really?
Also,
You brought Biden up, you own it.
Attempted whatabout noted.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:03 pmSimon & Schuster Cancels Plans for Senator Hawley’s Book
……
Mr. Hawley, a Missouri Republican and Trump ally, has been criticized for challenging the results and accused of helping incite the mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday. His book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” was scheduled to be published in June.
“We did not come to this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.”
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:11 pm…….
The subject of Mr. Hawley’s book, which was already available for preorder on Amazon and other retailers, is not about the election or Mr. Trump, but about technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Its cancellation was remarkably swift and raised questions about how publishers will approach future books by conservatives who have supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election.
……
There is always Regnery.
Democrats are drafting new impeachment articles. Inaction is increasingly untenable
……..
The new articles of impeachment circulating among House Judiciary Democrats argue that Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors and violated his oath to defend the Constitution and faithfully execute the office of the presidency by inciting Wednesday’s violence.
One draft being circulated, the Democratic aide tells me, says Trump is guilty of willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States. It notes that just before Congress convened to count the electoral votes, Trump reiterated false claims that he won the election and made statements that encouraged and predictably resulted in the lawless violence at the Capitol.
The mob that breached the Capitol, the draft continues, was incited by Trump and injured law enforcement, threatened members of Congress and disrupted their constitutional duty to count the votes.
The draft also cites a broad pattern in which Trump has tried to subvert and obstruct the counting of electoral votes, citing his pressure on the Georgia secretary of state to find votes to overturn the outcome after the voting and the state’s electors had been certified.
The draft continues that in doing all these things, Trump put the security of the United States and its governing institutions in danger and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power. It continues that Trump betrayed his trust as president and demonstrated that he will remain a continuing threat to our national security, the Constitution, and the rule of law and self governance.
Trump thus warrants impeachment, trial and removal, the draft concludes.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:16 pm……..
The politics of impeachment inside the Judiciary Committee and the Democratic caucus are complicated. The aide tells me some members fear that impeachment might trigger another violent episode, while others think Trump’s incitement of violent insurrection simply must be met with a forceful congressional response, and that failure here would itself make more lawlessness and violence more likely.
…….
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:19 pm
Our esteemed host wrote:
Why is it unpublishable? As an attorney and a prosecutor, you know that the only punishments we can mete out legally are incarceration or death. Tarring and feathering certainly falls outside of that, yet you advocated it, and yes, I have taken that literally.
If what you believe ought to happen to the people involved is unpublishable, what are we to believe other than you are advocating a cruel or unusual punishment? Breaking on the wheel? Being hanged, drawn and quartered? Burning at the stake? Being seized up on the quarterdeck and flogged with the cat-o-nine-tails?
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:21 pmTime123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 2:25 pm
This isn’t exactly a correct statement. The left-wing and right-wing groups are in an escalating cycle of violence. They aren’t independent of each other. Both the extreme left and the extreme right should be condemned.
It seems like a lot of people think we can, in 4 years, go from “it’s obvious the Russians stole the election” to “it was free and fair” without actually changing anything besides the outcome and at the same time think “Antifa has a point” and “maybe this marxism thing isn’t so bad”. You should be expecting the temperature to go up more.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:25 pmImpeaching him again is not to remove him.
J. W. Morris (ae9309) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:26 pmIts to prevent him from running again in 2024
Impeachment and Invoking the 25th Amendment are not Mutually Exclusive Options
……
The two processes serve distinct purposes. The 25th Amendment can be used to temporarily remove from office a president unable to perform his duties (though, in this case, a temporary removal would likely cover the entire rest of Trump’s term). Invooking does not involve any assessment of whether the president has engaged in wrongdoing, does not necessarily involve any moral opprobrium (the president could be removed because he is unable to serve for reasons that are not his fault, such as injury or illness), and cannot be used to bar him from holding office again in the future.
By contrast, impeachment followed by conviction removes the president from office permanently, and does require a judgment that he has committed a “high crime” or “misdemeanor.” The latter need not be an actual violation of criminal law; but it does have to be some sort of significant abuse of power or threat to the constitutional order. Perhaps even more importantly, impeachment can be used to not only remove the president from office, but also to impose the additional penalty of “disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.” The latter would be a useful step to prevent Trump from ever returning to power and thereby once again abusing it in the ways he has over the last four years.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:28 pm……
……..Vice President Pence and the cabinet indeed invoke the 25th Amendment, if they can. And Congress should move to impeach and convict Trump at the same time. The former step would eliminate the immediate threat Trump poses. The latter can impose proper moral and legal sanctions for his actions, and prevent him from ever returning to power again.
…….
Trump told a crowd to march on the capital and fight. Then they did just that. That’s inciting violence.
Biden said it was wrong that different groups were treated differently. No violence has resulted from is remarks.
You seem to want to draw moral equivalence between Atifa and the Terrorists that attacked the capital as if the one excuses or justifies the other. It doesn’t.
If you disagree with Patterico’s points about the relationship between Antifa and Trumpers go ahead and make that point directly.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:33 pmAs long as the terrorists who tried to use violence to prevent Biden being confirmed have people like you to excuse their actions I’m sure it will get worse.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:35 pm@141
The amendment is here:
https://republicanleader.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/RESOLUTION_xml.pdf
Exactly what, was objectionable here?
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:36 pmColonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:03 pm
Do you think it’s him turning it down? Really?
Well, technically, I gave you the comment that brought Biden up and it wasn’t me.
Well, I’m not sure I’m willing to recognize you as a title authority but it seems like maybe
whembly (5745f6) — 1/7/2021 @ 12:10 pm
has a prior claim? Maybe I’ll assert a lien.
And now you’re the whatabout police? You’re wearing a lot of hats. Are you sure it’s not a conspiracy to commit a whatabout? How do you know whembly, Radegunda, and I aren’t part of a scheme to commit a whatabout? Are you sure you can establish intent or is that not required for a whatabout?
Now that it’s noted what happens? You’ve got to think it’s an odd quote or you wouldn’t be trying to run interference for it.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:40 pmFormer Attorney General Bill Barr said Trump ‘orchestrating a mob’ to storm the Capitol was a ‘betrayal of his office’
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:49 pmWhembly wrote:
That was the memeorandum that went out; several Democratic demagogues have said the very same thing. Do the former Vice President, and the others who have uttered this bovine feces, believe that the Capitol Police are somehow racist thugs who would get out-of-control if they encountered Negroes behaving badly?
Thing is, during 2020’s Summer of Fire and Hate, we had many, many, many people rioting, burning, bombing and looting, yet the police were very restrained, mostly staying out of the way, and not gunning down the rioters. The officers were doing everything they could to avoid becoming the next ones to shoot someone who might be a member of an Accredited Victim Group™, at the very least because they didn’t want to lose their jobs.
Janice Armstrong, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote that had the demonstrators been black, “blood would have flowed down those white steps,” using as her evidence that the Secret Service, an entirely different organization, killed a black woman for a u-turn near but not at the White House.
In 2013, well before the evil reich-wing Donald Trump was in office.
Of course, when it comes to Black Lives Mattering, there have been ten homicides in the City of Brotherly Love so far this year, in six days, 1.66666 per day, a rate even higher than 2020’s record death total, and from the Inquirer? Crickets. At least six of the ten were black, and a seventh Hispanic, but the Inquirer doesn’t like to mention that, not at all, because it’s politically incorrect.
Murder victims in Philly get noticed by the Inquirer only when they are Somebody, or a cute little white girl. Mr Finkelman will remember the uproar when Rian Thal was murdered.
Here in the Bluegrass State, the Lexington police chief released statistics about the 34 homicides in the city in 2020, specifying the ages of victims and suspects, their names, and where they were killed, but their race or ethnicity? That was kept quiet, even though on the police department’s website, they had another chart of non-fatal shootings, in which race was noted, so it’s obviously a statistic they keep.
But our former Vice President? Nope, he just wanted to fan racial flames some more.
I apologize for having too few links in this comment; any more than what I have included would have sent this comment into moderation.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:51 pmThe Dana, WTF was that?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:56 pmRadegunda wrote:
Sadly, this is true, and my Twitter and Facebook feeds are full of Trump supporters screaming for a third party and condemning Republicans for not supporting President Trump more forcefully. I hope that they Get Over Themselves by 2022, bit I am worried.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:56 pmI hope that they Get Over
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:01 pmThemselvesTo Russia by 2022.Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:33 pm
I said very clearly in
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:16 am
and in
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:25 pm
You are misrepresenting my opinion. You disagree that BLM/Antifa are extreme left and you want to try to separate what you are justifiably upset about from yesterday from something you generally approve of. While the BLM/Antifa violence doesn’t justify yesterday and I’m not trying to make a claim about one being worse than the other they are interrelated. You can’t untangle them.
But you do understand that there is a difference between saying that one thing justifies another and saying they are interrelated? Accusing me of trying to draw a moral equivalence or justification isn’t based on anything I’ve said. I can, and do, condemn both.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:03 pmThe Commandant of Stalag 13 asked:
To which comment did you refer?
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:03 pmMcEnany tries to distance administration from Capitol riots
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tried on Thursday to distance President Donald Trump’s administration from riots at the Capitol, even though the president had encouraged his followers to move on the building the previous day.
“Those who violently besieged our Capitol are the opposite of everything that this administration stands for,” McEnany said in a televised statement on Thursday afternoon. “The core value of our administration is the idea that all citizens have the right to live in safety, peace, and freedom.”
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:04 pm…….
McEnany also said the president was committed to a safe and orderly transition of power, despite his monthslong attack on the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. She did not take questions from reporters after her brief statement.
……
@ Frosty So lets go back and look at what “the Russians stole the election.” meant. It didn’t mean that the Russians had gone in and changed the voting machines or sent in fake ballots. What it meant was that the Russians were using propaganda and information obtained through possible spying (or implied information implied to have been obtained through possible spying) to help their preferred candidate (who had made a possibly unserious to start out with ask) and influence voters. The voting itself was considered generally to be both free and fair.
What is being currently said of the current election is that there was basically a set of various state wide conspiracies, including in Republican controlled states by Republicans in control of those states, to change the actual ballots and vote totals and/or slant the voting to favor Biden. They are saying that the voting itself wasn’t free and fair.
Is there evidence?
Well, in the first situation, we all saw the ask. It was darn public. Evidence was given to the court that Roger Stone was in communication with a heavily Russian influenced organization, and we know that members of the Trump family met with several Russians connected with the Russian government in order to discuss how the Russians could help the Trump campaign, as admitted by Don jr and seen in published emails. Our counter intelligence agencies were also able to trace the propaganda back to Russian sources. The evidence does seem to support at least some belief that the Russians tried to interfere with our elections.
In the current situation, there doesn’t seem to be much if any evidence. No one in these supposed conspiracies has spilled the beans or been caught, which seems unlikely if there had been, in fact, several conspiracies that also would’ve had to contain people from a number of different and often conflicting ideologies. The courts have rejected a number of cases, including from lack of evidence. Cases brought on procedural reasons have been rejected or decided in favor of the various state election commissions, by mostly conservative judges. Vote totals have been counted and recounted with very very few changes, both by machine and by hand. Signatures have been re-compared also with very very few changes. There does not seem to be much, if any, evidence to support the belief that the elections were not free and fair other than that some people feel like the results don’t match their perception of the local zeitgeist.
The situations do not appear to be similar or even very comparable on the type of claims made, the methods implied, or the evidence available, so, yes, I would say that one could easily hold that the Russians may have interfered with the 2016 elections while also holding that the 2020 elections were free and fair.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:06 pmMr 123 wrote:
At least not yet.
But it certainly did during the Summer of Fire and Hate.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:11 pmThe Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:56 pm
Someone brought up the 3rd party thing with me recently. My response was, ok, who ya gonna run? Where are these politicians ready for this 3rd party ticket? And if you’ve got a crop of quality politicians in your back pocket why have you been holding out? Oh, and if you aren’t trusting the 2020 vote why do you think these 3rd party wonders will get any votes at all?
People really don’t appreciate the depth of the rot. Pick the blue pill.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:14 pmSo Biden’s comments today, travelled back in time to influence the activities of people last year, interesting.
I know humans are supposed to view time as a constant, moving ever forward, which potentially may not be true. But if you have evidence of this, you should work with Dave, you might get to put your names on one of those “Noble” prizes.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:20 pmHere’s How the Capitol Mob Violated Federal Criminal Law
……
……Hundreds of people participated in what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned as a “failed insurrection” ……
The extensive video evidence and crowds of people involved in yesterday’s mayhem give rise to a plethora of potential criminal charges against a large number of criminal suspects. Here, we spell out some of the potential federal criminal statutes that could apply to yesterday’s conduct. It’s not intended to be an all-encompassing list, and will likely grow as more reporting emerges about what exactly happened in Capitol Hill. Nor do we directly address President Trump’s potential legal exposure, a subject which raises complicated questions of presidential liability to criminal prosecution.
….[H]ere is a rough list of plausible factual predicates for any follow-on prosecution under federal law:
Hundreds of individuals, some armed, forcibly intruded into the Capitol in order to stop the certification of electoral-college votes. ……
The intrusion resulted in violence threatened or committed against Capitol security, against members of Congress and the Senate, and against congressional staff. …….
The rioters stole and vandalized government property.
…..
If nothing else, the mob clearly violated laws against trespassing on federal facilities and destroying and stealing federal property. ……
Another federal statute makes it a crime to “knowingly enter[] or remain[] in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so” including “with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”……
A second category of offenses relates to disorder. For example, federal law prohibits both transportation of firearms and obstruction of law enforcement as part of civil disorder, an activity defined broadly as “any public disturbance involving acts of violence by assemblages of three or more persons, which causes an immediate danger of or results in damage or injury to the property or person of any other individual.” Federal law also criminalizes riots, which are defined along similar lines. Finally, there is a special prohibition on forcibly obstructing a congressional inquiry, although it’s unclear whether the electoral-count certification counts as an “inquiry.”
…….
And then there are the political offenses. These come with increased criminal penalties, and would also send the strongest message about the severity of the behavior on display.
The offenses can be found in title 18, chapter 115, which criminalizes “treason, sedition, and subversive activity.”……It is notable, though, that a conviction for rebellion or insurrection would make someone “incapable of holding any office under the United States,” a fact that may be of interest to those concerned about Trump’s future political ambitions.
[T]he most relevant prohibition is Section 2384, which outlaws “seditious conspiracy,” defined as when “two or more persons … conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States … or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.” ……
……[R]ecall just this summer, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen (then in his capacity as deputy attorney general) voiced support for seditious conspiracy charges against Black Lives Matter protesters. In a statement yesterday, he condemned the violence as an “intolerable attack on a fundamental institution of our democracy.”
……
Although seditious conspiracy is by no means a common or easy-to-prove offense, it is, as its prosecutorial history demonstrates, still relevant today. And to the extent that yesterday’s mob intentionally used force to prevent the certification of electoral-college results, there is certainly a plausible case for seditious conspiracy charges, in addition to charges for more ordinary violations of federal law.
…..No doubt this will be at the top of the list for incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland to deal with.
But at the end of the day, yesterday’s attack on the Capitol creates a target-rich environment for prosecutors. As it turns out, you can’t can’t physically assault the peaceful transition of power without breaking a mess of federal laws along the way.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:28 pmAntifa are left wing extremists that have little use for the Democrats.
BLM is in issue group within the Dem coalition.
People can support or be one, the other, or both.
You’ve said several things on this thread that aren’t consistent with each other. You say there’s no excuse, but then you make excuses.
The violence by Antifa/BLM is only interrelated with the terrorists that stormed the capital because people like you use it the one to excuse the other.
If you can lay out some clear cause/effect relationship other then “Antifa did something bad so it’s OK if we do something worse.” I’m willing to listen. But right now it just seems like an attempt to excuse the actions or terrorists.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:34 pmCan you draw me the the link between something that Biden said the violence that directly resulted from his words? Because it’s pretty easy to do with Trump.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:35 pmCoons calls on Cruz and Hawley to resign
……
During a press conference in Delaware, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), told reporters that Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) “should resign,” according to WBOC, one day after a group of Trump supporters staged a deadly insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.
……
Since the insurrection, Cruz and Hawley are facing a backlash from their colleagues, who are accusing them of inciting violence by casting doubt on the results of the 2020 election. Hawley and Cruz have both condemned Wednesday’s violent act. On Thursday morning, Cruz said the Justice Department should “vigorously prosecute” all of those involved and called for a peaceful transfer of power.
A spokesperson for Hawley did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Cruz, in an interview with KTRK, dismissed Democratic calls for his resignation.
“No one should be surprised to be seeing Democrats playing politics and to see them attacking and trying to attack strong conservative leaders,” Cruz said. “I do think it’s really cynical for them to be trying to take advantage of what was a tragic event that occurred yesterday in Washington.”
…….
Oh brother, what hypocrites. Cruz and Hawley will no doubt base their presidential campaigns on yesterday’s insurrection (Hawley was fund raising during the assault).
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:58 pmNic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:06 pm
I don’t think the average person has your understanding of “Russia stole the election for Trump”. Some propaganda doesn’t support the constant claims that Trump is a Putin stooge.
I’ve obviously never bought into the Russian connection. I also have no reason to believe there was fraud enough to change 2020. But the voting process doesn’t inspire confidence. That it is “free and fair” is a statement of faith. I’d appreciate a much better process.
I can agree with you about the difference in the details between 2016 and 2020 but after four years of questioning 2016 simply asserting that 2020 was clean isn’t going to be enough for enough people that it will be a problem.
At some point, Trump will be gone. He isn’t the only one that has made a mess and getting rid of him won’t be enough to restore faith in the system and our institutions.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:59 pmIf President Trump, by his words, was encouraging people to storm the Capitol building, then how come nobody expected it when it happened??
A. Because his words, when understood as usual, wouldn’t normally be interpreted that way.
What did he say?
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6
It;s not even clear he intended to interfere with Congress.
But, of course, he should have known whom he was dealing with. There was more than enough warning.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:59 pmI love the credit Trump World is claiming for Trump telling the rioters to go home. It reminds me of the joke Shecky Greene used to tell about the time Frank Sinatra saved his life. Five guys were beating the crap out of him when Frank said, “OK boys, that’s enough.”
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:02 pmPeggy Noonan has a new column up, behind the WSJ paywall.
There’s more.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bring-the-insurrectionists-to-justice-11610065179
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:11 pmAt some point in the future, when they film “Downfall 2”, we can dub Trump’s angry tirades into other languages as a joke.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:14 pm@3. Except it was. Especially compared to Washington in April, 1968.
You’re just too close to it. The true tragedy here was the astonishing cowardice displayed by so called elected leaders in the United States Congress. Where were Pierre Delecto and his colleagues? Certainly not on the steps the Capitol, acting adult and defending their institution, shouting ‘STOP.’ They ran away. Despicable lot.
Yeltsin had guts; the Russian had balls and the courage of his convictions. Hell, a Chinaman standing in front of a tank showed more courage than the weasels in Congress and the plagiarist-elect cowering in his Wilmington gymnasium.
They’re all a disgusting, uninspiring bunch of party hacks who hide behind flags and empty rhetoric. Thank God they weren’t around in 1778; and if they’d been around in 1944, Patton would have had them digging latrines.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:14 pm@Frosty
Obviously I can’t say if it was the universal understanding, but it was the understanding of most people in my area at the time, though over the years that understanding certainly could’ve changed. I also have to say that if we started now for the 2024 election (and access was free and equally available), I wouldn’t have a problem with voter ID with maybe some kind of voter ID number for use with vote by mail, the way a signature is currently used. I do have a problem with that if it starts with only 6 months to go and access mostly in middle/upper class areas.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:20 pmPentagon put significant restrictions on D.C. Guard ahead of pro-Trump protests
…….
In memos issued on Jan. 4 and 5, the Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary for self-defense, sharing equipment with local law enforcement or using Guard surveillance and air assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off, according to officials familiar with the orders.
The D.C. Guard was also told it would be allowed to deploy a Quick Reaction Force only as a measure of last resort, the officials said.
The need for higher-level approval appeared to have slowed the military response when the Capitol Police, the law enforcement force that reports to Congress and protects the House and the Senate, requested backup from 200 troops during a call with top Pentagon officials early Wednesday afternoon, according to officials familiar with the call.
…….
The Defense Department was able to restrict the D.C. Guard because the military force answers to the president rather than the mayor, as the District is not a state. The president’s power over the D.C. Guard is typically delegated to the defense secretary, then the Army secretary, who makes command decisions.
……
The delay in response prompted panicked lawmakers to call high-up officials at the Pentagon and in nearby states asking for military force to be sent to Capitol Hill. The governors of Maryland and Virginia expressed concern Wednesday about what they described as a delay in reaction by the Defense Department.
On Thursday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ( R ) said he received a call from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who said he was in a secure location with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.
“I was actually on the phone with Leader Hoyer who was pleading with us to send the guard,” Hogan said. “He was yelling across the room to Schumer and they were back and forth saying we do have the authorization and I’m saying, ‘I’m telling you we do not have the authorization.’ ”
Hogan said Maj. Gen. Timothy Gowen, the Adjutant General of the Maryland National Guard, was repeatedly rebuffed by the Pentagon.
…….
Ninety minutes later, Hogan said, he received a call “out of the blue, not from the Secretary of Defense, not through what would be normal channels,” but from Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who asked if the Maryland guardsmen could “come as soon as possible.”
“It was like, yea, we’re waiting, we’re ready,” said Hogan, who had already sent 200 State Police troopers at Bowser’s request.
…….
…….Clark Mercer, chief of staff to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D), said he received a call from his counterpart in Bowser’s office, who suggested the Defense Department wasn’t moving fast enough and asked for Virginia to send in its own state Guard — an extraordinary request that laid bare the difficulty Bowser faced in having to rely on federal officials at the Pentagon answerable to the president to command the District’s military force.
Virginia sent in its Guard and state troopers after Northam received a panicked call from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asking for help.
…….
It is unclear what role if any Trump played in the decisions regarding the D.C. Guard, which is overseen by his Pentagon subordinates.
Thousands of additional National Guard forces were moving into the area on Thursday, as their commander said authorities had not imagined “in their wildest dreams” that supporters of President Trump could storm the seat of American democracy.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:20 pm……..
If nothing this will speed forward DC statehood, so that the District government doesn’t need to relay on the tender mercies of the Federal government.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:28 pm
You can pretty much hang (npi) the entire argument on
The formal acceptance of the Electoral College vote being not only a function of law, but a constitutional duty.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:21 pm“We love you. You very special.”
–Donald J. Trump, to the rioters, 1/6/2021
“You do not represent our country.”
–Donald J. Trump, to the rioters, 1/7/2021
That wrenching sound was my neck whipsawing after reading those passages.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:23 pmKM-
Here is the full seditious conspiracy section of the US Code:
I think the insurrectionists can be prosecuted under any of the highlighted clauses.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:28 pmI think that stealing Nancy’s desk blotter is a hard thing to get a sedition charge on. But they did — every last person who entered the Capitol — conspire to use force (and did use force) to delay the execution of a constitutional duty.
I think that you’d have difficulty calling this “waging war against” the United States, so it isn’t treason. Had they managed to get hold of high-value targets and hold them hostage, that would be a lot easier to argue.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:32 pmCapitol Police Chief has resigned. One of his officers died. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/capitol-police-officer-dead-after-riot/index.html
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:34 pm@178. Peggy Noonan is irrelevant- and an eager, willing minion who helped promote the biggest lie in the past 40 years which is the core source; the catalyst, for the riotous, populist anger fermented by the likes of fellow Reaganite Pat Buchanan and finally– finally, after decades of getting of getting peed on, finally boiled over yesterday: trickle down economics.
If you listened to any of them, many expressed this in one way or another over and over. That doesn’t mean the destruction was right at all– but, as ‘Network‘ so presciently predicted, they’re “articulated the popular rage” – which 74-plus million of them share.
And they’re not going to just disappear. You know who knows this and is already trolling for their support to carry their banner for 2024; every GOP politician who challenged the EC tally last night… like Hawley… and Cruz.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:35 pmKevin, I’d risk COVID transmission in a crowded multiplex to see Downfall 2, but I’d also like to see R. Budd Dwyer become a trending topic on search engines.
urbanleftbehind (7b9281) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:36 pmMr Snowman wrote:
As I have responded to some of my friends, the Republican Party was formed in 1854; by 1860, it had elected a President and a majority in Congress. The Libertarian Party, the larges third party in the US, was formed in 1971; by 2020, it had elected several township auditors, water board commissioners and dog catchers.
Yeah, times are different. In 1854; the Whigs had just fallen apart, so there was a vacuum to be filled. But the most successful effort was the TEA Party, working within the GOP, by running candidates in primaries. They won some and lost some. Sadly, their commitment to fiscal discipline vanished, and it vanished before COVID-19.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:37 pmThank you for the heads up, Paul. Just watched it. SMH
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:39 pmPaul Montagu-
“You do not represent our country.”
–Donald J. Trump, to the rioters, 1/7/2021
Wink wink nudge nudge.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:39 pmKM-
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:41 pmAn insurrectionist also stole a laptop from Senator Merkley’s office.
@189. Was in South Jersey at the time and saw that aired out of Philly. Awful sight. And still a vivid memory.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:47 pmChicago Police Union President Defends Those Who Stormed The U.S. Capitol
……
John Catanzara, elected last May to represent the city’s 12,000 rank-and-file police officers, said he understands the frustration behind the riot, which led to four deaths, injuries to several police officers and damage to the iconic building.
“There was no arson, there was no burning of anything, there was no looting, there was very little destruction of property,” Catanzara told WBEZ in a Wednesday evening phone interview. “It was a bunch of pissed-off people that feel an election was stolen, somehow, some way.”
Catanzara echoed President Donald Trump’s oft-repeated false claims that Joe Biden stole the election. But the FOP leader admitted there is no proof.
……..
“Evidence matters,” Catanzara said. “Until that appears, shame on them for what they did, but it was out of frustration. There’s no fights. There’s no, obviously, violence in this crowd. They pushed past security and made their way to the Senate chamber. Did they destroy anything when they were there? No.”
Video and photographs of the incident show that the rioters smashed windows of the Capitol and ransacked offices inside.
……
“They’re individuals,” he said. “They get to do what they want. Again, they were voicing frustration. They’re entitled to voice their frustration. They clearly have been ignored and they’re still being ignored as if they’re lunatics and treasonous now, which is beyond stupid.
…….
But Catanzara said the riot was getting blown out of proportion.
“It’s an inconvenience at this point, is all it is,” he said. “This is not some mass insurrection, coup attempt. They’re not destroying or burning down the fricking Capitol building. This hyperbole and this emotion that the media is spewing now, like this is some kind of end-of-times scenario, is ridiculous.”
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:49 pmThat wrenching sound was my neck whipsawing after reading those passages.
Paul, sorry about your neck, but really haven’t you learned YET? Trump’s statements have a 3 hour expiration date.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:58 pmTru did tweet, several hours after the fact:
This was too much for Jack Dorsey and company, and his tweet was deleted.
Earlier he had posted tow tweets about supporting law enforcement and the men and women in blue and they should be peaceful..
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:59 pmAn insurrectionist also stole a laptop from Senator Merkley’s office.
Still not sedition. It may be a theft during an act of sedition. I don’t know if that carries an enhancement.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:59 pmYou know you’re hitting close to the mark when DCSCA starts whining about certain writers being “irrelevant”.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:59 pmNoonan’s piece was excellent, as is McLaughlin’s.
Ah, it’s three hours. I thought I had 18 holes worth of time.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:02 pmStill not sedition.
The insurrectionists have met the standard for sedition as outlined in my post above.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:02 pm@199. But irrelevant.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:08 pm@188:
It’s not “trickle down economics” that is at issue. It’s exporting money and jobs and importing cheap labor. And yes, that is a consequence of what Reagan did. There were other consequences with better outcomes.
The USA is a great place to live and work if you have a college degree in the right subjects. Law, engineering, product design, marketing, finance, etc. If you expect to make your way swinging a hammer or assembling widgets, not so much. And it was this latter group that got left out in the cold for the last 20 years.
They are still out there in the cold and I fear both parties are going to try to ignore them again. A successful politician will figure out how to get them employed going forward. Trump didn’t do jack for them, and didn’t know how to do jack for anyone. He failed and failed ugly.
The sooner we get past “Trump” and on to solving the problems he pretended to care about, the better we’ll be.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:08 pmAh, it’s three hours. I thought I had 18 holes worth of time.
It would have been 30 minutes, but Headline News changed its format.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:09 pmThe insurrectionists have met the standard for sedition as outlined in my post above.
Of course they have. My comment is only that you’ve included extraneous provisions. It was sedition the moment Congress could not operate.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:11 pmBetsy DeVos has resigned.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:11 pmIt is disturbing they are resigning over Trump’s insane behavior, because they are the only folks who can realistically protect us from something worse. This rep management will backfire anyway.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:12 pm@203. It’s the core source that fueled the rise of the populism channeled by Buchannan which fermented and festered until Trump carried it through. These people aren’t going any where and the alarming thing to any ‘Republican’ must be the GOP politicians actively courting their support.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:14 pm@206. When Melania ‘resigns’ – now that would be news. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:18 pmSome commentators are throwing cold water on the 25th Amendment process, as the President is allowed to object, requiring the 2 Houses of Congress to deny his objection by a 2/3rds vote in each House. In theory, this makes it harder than Impeachment.
However, once the VP takes over, it takes a while for the President’s appeal to be processed, during which time he’s still on the sidelines. They can delay for up to 25 days, which is long enough.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:21 pmI hear Barron is quitting and taking the Mom with him.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:22 pmthey are the only folks who can realistically protect us from something worse.
They may have discussed the matter with their “actings.”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:23 pm@211. LOLOLOL Yes, I had that quip on my list but you beat me to it. LOL
@210. Appremntly Fox’s Baier reported Pence has cooled on the 25th Amendment route. Frankly, why they haven’t put at least a censure into motion for the history books by now speaks volumes about how little they’ve learned in the past 4 years and 24 hours.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:26 pmPeggy Noonan:
What he said was:
He didn’t tell them to fight.
The crowd chanted: Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
But that’s like “fighting” for a %15 minimum wage. Or like Rudy Giuliani, Trump said:
Or Jim Jordan:
Or like this:
Or:
Or:
Or:
Or:
Now what kind id fighting is this?
If Trump conspired to storm the Capitol, he didn’t do it with this speech, and exclusively with his speech.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:32 pmSorrows of Werther
William Makepeace Thackeray – 1811-1863
WERTHER had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her,
She was cutting bread and butter.
Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing for to hurt her.
So he sighed and pined and ogled,
And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.
Charlotte, having seen his body
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:33 pmBorne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
CNN need to correct this.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:36 pmOne of the problems with impeachment is that Congress isn’t scheduled to be in session again until Jan. 19. I think they have these pro forma sessions, quickly gaveled down, every three days or so, to prevent recess appointments, but they may not be able to get together a quorum unless they plan it.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:37 pmEffective tomorrow. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/533281-betsy-devos-resigns-as-education-secretary She’s brutal.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:40 pm#201
Please.
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:41 pm“…or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof..” So by that standard, half of Seattle and most of Portland should be charges with sedition. Hell, Code Pink should be charged under that standard taken literally and absolutely.
But fine. Go ahead, just make sure that everyone who meets the standards set get charged with sedition and prosecuted with all the resources of the Federal Government. My guess after seeing how the Malhuer Occupation was handled is at best you get “depredation of Federal property” and maybe weapons charges and parole violations. In the Malhuer occupation the ring leader Bundy’s and five others had cases dismissed with prejudice. My guess is the guy who smiled for the camera while bashing in the window of the Capitol is screwed unless his lawyer can change the venue to Harney County, Oregon (I know the case was actually tried in Las Vegas NV)
In Malhuer, the FBI agent that killed Finicum (or whatever his name was) was run through the ringer
“Police union representatives reportedly told reporters that an officer died Thursday, but later stated that the officer in question would be taken off life support Friday morning.”
Okay, then.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:42 pmTime123 (d1bf33) — 1/7/2021 @ 4:34 pm
I’m pretty sure by your comment that this isn’t true but I’ll give it another try.
There is a difference between pointing out something and justifying something. Ignoring the personal insult it is a true statement that many people over the past year excused BLM/Antifa violence because they thought BLM was advancing the cause against racism. It’s also reasonable to point out that this comes with its own set of problems some of which we’re starting to see. Wiser people than me have made a clear case for non-violent resistance giving the exact reason I seem to be failing to explain as one of the justifications.
If someone on the right/left escalates violence the other side will use that as justification and vice versa. That will happen as long as there are people who tolerate the process and both sides are able. So, let me be clear on this because you seem to be dead set on putting words into my mouth. I’m not saying “Antifa did something bad so it’s OK if [MAGA] do[es] something worse”. I’ve said both are not OK (actually I’ve condemned both).
I think the part you’re having trouble with is that I’m implying that excusing BLM/Antifa violence erodes the moral high ground you want to occupy to condemn right-wing violence. I suspect this is why our host took a strong position on BLM/Antifa. The problem here isn’t that I’m trying to justify what happened at the capital. The problem between you and me is that I’m making you uncomfortable about BLM/Antifa violence. It’s a safe and comfortable position to assert that “[the right is] the only group currently committing acts of violence” but it’s simply not true.
There are people within BLM who have valid concerns about police violence. I agree with those concerns. I’m also guessing some of those people think BLM is the only group addressing the issue so they are willing to overlook the rest of the blight BLM brings. I understand that view but the blight is still there. BLM is a bit more than an issue group within the Dem coalition.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:49 pm@135. Hunter Biden.
That is still happening, too.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:50 pmMedal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh defends the rioting insurrectionists:
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:53 pm207. Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:12 pm
After thinking it over, most of those people in key positions decided not to do it, but to stay in place to help with the transition. Mick Mulvaney, who resigned, had a nothing job: Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, and Brexit is done. The NSC staff is staying in place. Only Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao resigned, effective January 11. She might not have if the 25th amendment was going anywhere.
Trump is reported as being isolated and disconnected from the government, and now they consider that a good thing He’s going to Camp David for the weekend.
He has just about nothing on his public schedule. Today he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three golfers. He’s busying himself only with the election, and talking only to people in the 4th ring of Trump World like Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Lin Wood (not sure they have these names right) He hasn’t spoken to Mike Pence since Wednesday morning before the Session of Congress opened.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:54 pmFYI, best media coverage: Newsy.
Excellent, concise, balanced and comprehensive.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:54 pmNic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:20 pm
You and I have discussed this and I don’t remember any substantial disagreement. Part of my concern with 2020 was because COVID let’s try out things in different areas on short notice right before an obviously contentious election YOLO!
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:56 pm[mportant reminder: With the possible exception of the Pentagon restricting the mayor of Washington D.C. from deploying the National Guard, none of what happened involved any misuse of government power. It was an attack on Congress, but not by any art of the government.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:57 pmHunter Biden’s $500,000 from China is the price of one, just one, green card, sold by the Kushners to Chinese investors. (That was in 2017, might be $1 million now.)
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:00 pm@223. I’ve met Limbaugh. He stinks. Literally.
Very bad B.O.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:01 pmKushner link.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:02 pmWe have indeed. 😛
The other option would’ve been disenfrancising people who were vulnerable, so I can see why they took the relatively minor risk of doing some things that were already in stable and well documented use in other states.
Cynically, I also suspect that if Trump had won, no one would’ve had any trouble with any of the new processes, though the Ds would’ve continued to even more loudly protest the changes in the postal service.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:03 pm@228. Plagiarism is in these days, nk; expect this line in the inaugural address:
“Ask not what this Biden can do for you; ask what you can do for my Hunter.”
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:04 pmThe Bidens don’t know how to one-up themselves, DCSCA. Is anybody even thinking about the defense bill veto override, the stimulus SNAFU, and Section 230, right now?
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:09 pmAnyone perplexed that the two pipebombs found in DC seems underreported?
whembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:10 pmOK I give up. But thanks for the correction.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:10 pmNic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:03 pm
This is a problem for the same reason I think some of the court cases over voter fraud set a bad precedent. The D’s are convinced that this will never come back to bite them. At some point, we are going to sober up and realize the cure for Trump was worse than the disease. We’re also going to regret some of the tattoos. But don’t mind me. I’m just the
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:11 pmguy telling saying maybe 8 shots of Tequilla is enoughTrump shill.George Will:
Read the whole thing.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:22 pmsteveg (43b7a5) — 1/7/2021 @ 6:41 pm:
Your point is well taken. Acting AG Rosen instructed US Attorneys to charge protesters with sedition. Why they haven’t is another failure of the Trump DOJ. The Seattle and Portland protesters are as guilty as Trump’s insurrectionists.
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:30 pmHaley criticizes Trump over Capitol riot, election claims in RNC speech
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley sharply criticized President Donald Trump over the Capitol riot and his behavior since the election, telling Republican National Committee members in a closed-door speech Thursday evening that Trump’s actions “will be judged harshly by history.”
“President Trump has not always chosen the right words,” Haley said during an appearance at the RNC’s winter meeting on Amelia Island, Fla., according to a person familiar with her remarks. “He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn’t just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”
……
Haley acknowledged that Republicans faced a “tough reality” and said they had “some decisions to make about the political predicament” they find themselves in.
“We can whine about it. We can complain about it. We can blame each other for it. Or we can do something about it. If you ask me, there’s no whining in politics,” she added.
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:38 pm…….
Haley was for Trump before she was against him.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 5:32 pm
Richard “Bigo” Barnett, of Gravette, Arkansas. says he left a quarter on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, so it’s not stealing. I thought he said he took an envelope. Did he take a blotter, too?
https://twitter.com/AllMattNYT/status/1346959236421578754
We know who a lot of these people (in the pictures) are. The FBI is looking for them. They think many of them are still in the Washington, D.C. area and are planning something more either for tomorrow (unlikely) or for Inauguration Day, January 20 (more likely and announced by someone as the next event)
The most serious thing missing is a laptop from Senator Jeff Merkley’s office (D-Ore.) with some sensitive government information on it.
When this started, staff evacuated the Electoral votes (contained in mahogany boxes) If they’d been destroyed or tampered with they could have obtained duplicates in a few days, but anyway they saved the Electoral votes. It;s only a certification, not the original ballots. The rioters probably didn’t even think of the idea.
That’s the key thing really.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:41 pmI’m not contradicting you, Dustin, although, I suppose “taken off life support” could have a positive meaning.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:41 pm‘Great damage’: Republicans recoil from Missouri Sen. Hawley
…….
Aside from President Donald Trump, who roiled up supporters just before they stormed the Capitol, no politician has been more publicly blamed for Wednesday’s unprecedented assault on American democracy than Hawley. The 41-year-old first-term senator, a second-tier player through much of the Trump era, has rapidly emerged as a strident Trump ally, and may be among the most tarnished by the events of Jan. 6 for years to come.
“There will be political fallout for his actions,” said Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and former adviser to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign. “The initial decision to oppose the will of the people was downright wrong. The post-insurrection calculation to continue the charade is fallacious and dangerous.”
Hawley, who defeated Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2018, was once celebrated by the Republican establishment as a rising star. The Stanford- and Yale- educated lawyer was young, ambitious and savvy. It surprised some when he was first to announce he would endorse false claims of fraud and take up Trump’s cause, forcing House and Senate votes that would inevitably fail and in no way alter the election’s outcome.
……..
The Kansas City Star listed Hawley as second only to Trump as responsible for the attack on the Capitol, and noted Hawley had issued a political fundraising solicitation as the siege was underway.
“But this is not about me! It is about the people I serve, and it is about ensuring confidence in our elections,” said the email sent just as thousands were marching up Pennsylvania Avenue from a rally outside the White House headlined by Trump. “That’s why I am standing up on behalf of the people I serve to relay their concerns to Washington. For conviction. For principle. For our country. For YOUR VOTE.”
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:45 pm……..
frosty (f27e97) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:11 pm.
That’s because the Ds are always for more votes, and making it easier to vote, and the R’s for fewer of them and making it harder.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:46 pmAs far as I can tell, even the things the Ds don’t do come back to haunt them. I do truly believe, based on the evidence I’ve seen, that Trump is a possibly unknowing compromised asset and a probable criminal. I am truly worried about what the Biden administration will find once they have a chance to look at the less than public things that have taken place over the last 4 years. I worry that our intelligence assets have been significantly compromised. That irreparable harm has been done to national security and that significant harm has been done to the processes that help our country to function at all. I worry there are things out there that I don’t even know enough to worry about.
However, I also worry about the significant number of lies that he has told his supporters which they believe are God’s honest truth. I worry about the ways the Republican party has compromised itself for power. I worry about the problem that conservative media is not telling the truth to their viewers.
I worry that we needed honest conservative viewpoint media and instead what we seem to have gotten were a bunch of people who don’t know the truth unless it just happens to support their political viewpoint.
I worry that honest people who have conservative or liberal viewpoints are painted as liars by dishonest people.
I worry that we are dismissing wise voices because they don’t 100% agree with us on every issue.
Mostly at this point, I’m just worried about our entire political future.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:48 pmThere is no denying that America is in far worse shape now, and will continue to be in the future, in any respect you care to mention, than she was when Trump took office, and it is because of Trump’s criminal indifference, selfishness, incompetence, and corruption. For people who disagree, I am not usually polite enough to use the word “shill”. I use worse words.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:55 pmwhembly (c30c83) — 1/7/2021 @ 7:10 pm
No. In many ngoing news stories, important details get underreported (that’s why I am on the lookout for them) and these pipe bombs don’t fit into the narrative.
Also the olice don’t want to talk much about it.
Clearly, Donald Trump couldn’t have been the evil genius behind all of what happened yesterday.
There were three pipe bombs, by the way, as I read it, with one or more others in a car, although maybe I’m mistaken. They call them IED’s. Also a cooler of Molotov cocktails, unused.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 8:04 pmThe Pro-Trump Activists Who Helped Plan The Insurrection Feel Betrayed By The President
……..[S]ome of President Donald Trump’s most loyal followers, who had for months shamed, silenced, and banned anyone who criticized the president, grappled with a new feeling after the riot ended: betrayal.
For months, the forum TheDonald has been a gathering place for people planning to try to overturn Trump’s election defeat. But when its users actually broke into the Capitol, as they had promised to do for months, the site tried to rapidly change course, saying it would “follow President Trump’s lead” and would not allow “organizing, or calling directly for, violence of any kind.”
The reversal……… left some Trump loyalists in disbelief that they had done anything wrong: They were, they said, only following the president’s orders.
“I don’t understand the thinking,” said one popular post on the forum. “Trump told us to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. We listened to the president. They should be thanking us.”
……..
One post, with some 250 upvotes, read: “He calls people to descend on DC for what, 9 hours, then instructs them to go home? People have lost time, money, family, potentially careers and even their lives over this … and a ‘Thanks for coming, go home now’ is what people are instructed to do?”
“Exactly. Trump betrayed us,” a popular reply said. “He should have asked us to occupy the city. Unless they got him, and it’s not really him speaking.”
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/7/2021 @ 8:11 pm………
Many of TheDonald’s users saw the riots Wednesday as an ultimate failure, frustrated that supporters had complied with orders to leave the Capitol and had not instigated armed conflict with police. “There is a time to be disruptive and a time for actual violence. Today was the time for focused violence, and nobody came armed and ready to commit,” one user lamented.
…….,
“It’s sickening seeing people give Antifa the glory of fed-up Americans,” one popular post wrote.
………..
What, Trump cultists feel betrayed? I’m shocked!
It was Trump all the way, Sammy.
nk (1d9030) — 1/7/2021 @ 8:20 pmThe Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/7/2021 @ 3:51 pm
I didnt recognize the name. I had to look that up, and it still didn’r ring a bell, although the idea of the victime being in on the crime did. I’m not in Philadelphia.
I think you only had one. I think you can have three.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/7/2021 @ 8:20 pm@237. It’s 2021; George Will is irrelevant.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 8:44 pmThe more I hear about yesterday’s events, the more I think future AG and the Republican party itself need to investigate and act with extreme prejudice against everyone involved. Sec Def refusing to allow the national guard to help? pictures of the cap police doing nothing? The choice NOT to accept offered help from other law enforcement agencies? The president enjoying himself while he watched the invasion of the congress? The legislature should not just impeach the president, they should impeach the Sec Def. Who else knew and did nothing, or made it worse? Tear it out. Every leaf. Every branch. Every root. If thine eye offends thee…
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:39 pmWhat a mealy-mouth load of temporizing bullsh!t.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:46 pm“President Trump has not always chosen the right words,” Haley said during an appearance at the RNC’s winter meeting on Amelia Island, Fla., according to a person familiar with her remarks.
Understatement of the century.
norcal (b4d7b1) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:54 pmWhat a mealy-mouth load of temporizing bullsh!t.
“Pierre Delecto.” =mikedrop=
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:58 pmTrump chooses exactly the right f-ing words to get exactly the f-ing results he wants.
(Sorry, I’m usually more temperate, but I saw the interview with Maryland’s Republican Governor and I’m angry.)
Nic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:01 pm206.Betsy DeVos has resigned.
How J. Bruce Ismay of her. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:03 pm@233. A comma and a colon in the book of life. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:07 pmFrankly, why they haven’t put at least a censure into motion for the history books by now speaks volumes about how little they’ve learned in the past 4 years and 24 hours.
A second impeachment will serve fine as a censure.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:20 pmGeorge Will is irrelevant.
Everyone who warned us about Donald Trump is now relevant again, with an extra helping of “I told you so!”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:24 pmAs for his backers, DCSCA, I see they are busy changing their coats as we speak. By the end of this year, no one will have supported Trump.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:26 pmIt figures that the son of a shyster would be trawling for EB-5 dollars to bring rich Chinese (and maybe a few spies) into America. It’s a sweet deal if you’re already upper crust and have the right connections.
Paul Montagu (551180) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:29 pmIn my neck of the woods, Andre Agassi’s brother-in-law had all that EB-5 money to overspend on a couple of mixed use real estate projects, and he collected some nice fees for putting those deals together, but he got greedy and embezzled funds, and now he’s a felon.
I don’t mind the program all that much, except with Chinese, not when someone like Xi is in charge.
George Will left the GOP because of how the party was trending in Trump’s direction. He’s always been a consistent conservative voice, and he’s dead-on in nailing frauds and poseurs like Trump-Cruz-Hawley. Now he’s back in style, like the guy hanging onto his disco ‘stache from the 1970s.
Paul Montagu (551180) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:36 pmRegarding Trump, George Will showed some of the best political instincts out there, and he did it early. He is more relevant now than ever. People who defended Trump these last four years, and found him oh-so-entertaining? Not so much.
norcal (b4d7b1) — 1/7/2021 @ 10:59 pmBecause DCSCA keeps clamoring for him, David French:
Capitol Police were hung out to dry: 60 injured, 15 hospitalized, 1 dead.
Paul Montagu (551180) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:02 pmIf I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say they were purposely outmanned at Trump’s direction to make it easier for the insurrectionists to do their thing, to somehow keep himself in power.
It explains why he didn’t call the NG, why DOJ offered help but were rebuffed, why Hogan offered help but was left hanging.
Capitol Police were both victim and hero, and their boss should be a meter-maid for penance.
twitter.Com/davidafrench/status/1347423781057425409?s=21
Good one.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:06 pmThe Washington Post has a pretty detailed article about the security breakdown.
The DC Police, who were belatedly asked for assistance, were apparently the ones who got the situation under control.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/7/2021 @ 11:11 pm@258. As they can’t even keep disorganized Trumpsters out of the Capitol for a dozen hours, unlikely they’ll organize another impeachment in a dozen days.
_____
@262. Will was Buckley’d out and still doesn’t realize it.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:10 am@263. See 267. When the tail no longer wagged the dog, he had two options: jump or get pushed. Until the floor was knocked out from under him.
Worse still, an author/columnist voting for a known plagiarist, no less, only further sullies his rep.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:16 am260.As for his backers, DCSCA, I see they are busy changing their coats as we speak.
Let’s make it armbands instead– and stay with the flavor of criminality; very ‘Dirty Dozen’ish. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:19 am@266, Dave.
The National Guard armory is 2 miles from the Capital building. Google tells me that the trip takes 10 minutes for, like, normal people who have to follow traffic rules and such.
Is Ryan Murphy. Seriously saying. That it took 2 hours. To deploy. The NATIONAL GUARD WHILE THE CAPITOL BUILDING WAS UNDER ATTACK?!? WAS HE HIGH DURING THAT INTERVIEW??! IS HE CRAZY?!? DELUSIONAL!?! WERE THEY WALKING VERY SLOWLY?!? CRAWLING?!? ROLLING ON THEIR SIDES?!?
WHAT. THE. F.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:47 amNevermind, he wasn’t high, he was stupid and/or incompetent.
Apparently Murphy got the call at 2:00 and instead of calling the guard in to get ready so that they would be prepared to go as soon as approval came through, he spent an hour an a half sitting on his thumb, waiting for the Sec Def to get back to him. So, finally, at 3:52, when the Sec Def finally got back to him, he then called the guard in. Of course it still took ANOTHER 2 HOURS TO SEND THEM OUT AGAIN, since they didn’t arrive until just before curfew. At 6:00. My continuing question then, is, How, exactly, it took them two hours to put on fatigues and a vest, grab a shield and weaponry, form up, and get to the Capitol? Again I must ask, did they walk very slowly? Were they attempting to keep pace with a 2 year old? Perhaps their vehicles broke down and they had to push them?
What. The. F.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/8/2021 @ 1:16 amAshli babbett’s death will be remember as the kent state shooting deaths are still remembered. To many are gloating in social media today as to many gloated over the kent state shootings and unarmed black shootings to this day. I remember the revenge oklahoma city bombings. Many trumpsters are ex military, ex cia and even serving law enforcement who were sympathetic to the protestors. Explosives and fire arms are their expertise. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Both sides understand this left defund the police is the latest. What will be the far rights revenge for ashli babbitt.
asset (cdf648) — 1/8/2021 @ 1:36 amWhat will be the far rights revenge for ashli babbitt.
asset (cdf648) — 1/8/2021 @ 1:36 am
In light of recent history, it is hoped that both the far right and the far left are shamed back to the underside of the rocks from which they emerged.
norcal (b4d7b1) — 1/8/2021 @ 2:43 amNope. She’ll be known as a casualty of Trump’s two-months long BIG LIE about a “stolen” election. Trump lied, Babbitt died.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/8/2021 @ 4:31 amBabbitt will be remembered as the chump–the fool–who swallowed his Big Con, who threw away her honorable service in our armed forces in favor of the bogus cause of a charlatan.
The rioters will be similarly known as the idiots who couldn’t discern between the fact of a clean election and Trump’s Big Scam, and this all happened because our president is man-baby who threw a months long spoon-banging tantrum because he didn’t get his political pudding.
And now a good number of these thugs–hundreds, maybe thousands–are going to have criminal records. They went off after the motivational speeches to feloniously storm our capitol while Trump went back to his tent on White House grounds to watch what he wrought on a bank of flatscreens.
This motherf-cking commander-in-chief can’t get out of here soon enough.
If the rioters had been Antifa/BLM, or other undesirable Trump-haters, they would have made the trip in under five minutes.
It’s pretty clear the Capitol Police understated the threat and the Executive Branch understated it as well, all the while Trump fanned the flames. Total disconnect at several levels.
Hoi Polloi (139bf6) — 1/8/2021 @ 4:44 amThe path back to normalcy must at least partially navigate through the vast right-wing media complex. French had an interesting article on this a few weeks back
https://time.com/5911619/right-wing-media-trumps-conspiracies/
I’m not too encouraged thus far by the response of the opinionators at FNC or Talk Radio. It’s still a lot of whataboutism and framing the mob as patriots engaging a noble cause. Political voices trying to take back the narrative have to get amplified somewhere….and if all these gate-keepers keep shilling for Trump and Trumpism, there is no way to get over the noise threshold….and they get subsumed by the inevitable blowback. Dave mocks Gov. Haley as she tries to navigate this political minefield…..but he’s not in it…he can be safely pure from where he sits. Try winning elections with the right-wing media complex out to get you.
Hannity, Ingraham, and Rush were effectively coopted by Trump…..they are in tight….and intoxicated by the access and influence they wielded. They are not objective and have no pressure or obligation to be so. Someone like Erick Erickson….who I believe is personally aghast by everything Trump… gets pulled along by this constellation and the effect gets magnified. It’s not clear how you clean up Right Wing Media….pull them away from conspiracies and whataboutism. It’s too easy to market…easier than a 2000 word essay at the Bulwark. Countering bad ideas still matters…no matter what DCSCA feebly proclaims. Countering bogus claims about the Dominion Voting Systems matters. Countering the lies of the President about the election being stolen matters.
There’s an opportunity right now for the Right Wing media to start digging out of its hole and reestablishing its footing. I’m eager for the start….
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 1/8/2021 @ 4:49 amHere’s a way Biden could pardon Trump for his federal crimes and still stick it to him: He could say he received an extradition request from our allies the Iraqis, and he’s going to honor it. But I’d rather Biden not issue any pardons or extraditions.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/8/2021 @ 5:16 amFrosty, I read and thought about this. The first thing I thought of was that during our interaction here I’ve developed some respect for your thoughts and that my comments didn’t at all reflect that. I’m sorry about that and will try to do better going forward.
My position has consistently been:
Peaceful protest is a right.
Violence isn’t acceptable or part of a peaceful protest and elected officials need to maintain civil order in the areas they’re responsible for.
I think this is true when the motivation is one I agree with: We need better accountability for police who use excessive force and for motivations I disagree with: The 2020 presidential election was determined by fraud.
I think this is your thesis statement: excusing BLM/Antifa violence erodes the moral high ground you want to occupy to condemn right-wing violence.
This can be taken as a moral stance or a functional stance. I’m going to add what i see as the implications of each.
Moral
excusing BLM/Antifa violence erodes the moral high ground you want to occupy to condemn right-wing violence. and therefore it’s demonstrated that i don’t object to political violence in principle, just when i dislike the motivation and thus right wing political violence is justified.
Functional
excusing BLM/Antifa violence erodes the moral high ground you want to occupy to condemn right-wing violence. and therefore people who commit right wing violence and their supporters will wrongly believe that it’s justified, or use the hypocrisy as a justification.
I think you’re making a functional point that the criminals who committed violence will incorrectly feel justified because they don’t feel, or will claim not to feel, that the criticism of their actions is made in good faith. If I have your point wrong i apologize.
but as a functional point I don’t think there’s any value is worrying about what they think. They, and the non-violent people that support them, have shown a huge propensity for believing many amazing things despite the absence of evidence, or evidence to the contrary. There’s no reaction to the left wing violence of 2020 these people would feel is legitimate other then one which they agree with 100%. Trump’s lieutenants into this part of his base are Lin Wood, Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn. All 4 of them are dishonest conspiracy theorists. If you have examples of this group accepting facts and modifying what they believe because of facts I’m willing to change my mind. But as a functional matter I don’t think your point is correct.
Morally, wrongdoing by 1 party generally doesn’t excuse wrongdoing by another. There are specific exceptions, (e.g. self defense) but as a general rule your littering doesn’t justify my littering. If you get away with it all the time and I’m harshly punished I’m going to be upset and maybe it’s appropriate to offer me sympathy and express that you see the injustice. But the final answer isn’t for me to litter. It’s to fix the disparate impact in the system.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I appreciate it and responding to you helped me organize my thoughts.
Time123 (235fc4) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:05 amI have in the same conversation had a friend tell me.
1. Antifa was responsible for the violence.
2. The violence was justified because the election was stolen by Dominion and hackers.
3. The police were using force on the protestors far in excess of what they used on left wing protestors.
4. No one was ever in any danger and the protestors thought they were allowed to go into the capital.
5. The police should have left them in because Trump told them to go there and the police should have worked to fulfil his directive. Calling the people arrested criminals is incorrect.
In a later conversation he told me if it was right wing violence that it was basically a entirely predictable and justified response to the 2020 riots, but that he’s sure most of the bad stuff was done by Antifa.
The consistent theme throughout was outrage and insult that people were talking about this in a worse way then they did BLM. He really seemed to feel that it was unfair if Trump supports were more harshly criticized.
Time123 (7cca75) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:15 am“Antifa was responsible for the violence”, this seems like the big meme….I was curious how the inusurrection was being spun at RedState….and I caught this as a repeated theme in the comments. I was shocked to see none other than Streiff….the bully of RedState…trying to gently push back that there was no evidence of Antifa’s involvement. Interestingly, the commenter pushed back that that was just Streiff’s opinion…and not fact. It’s a loon factory over there…but it certainly follows your friend’s motivated reasoning. This is the problem with people getting sucked into personality….they will do anything to defend that personality. Once people see that the President can insert wild conspiracies to justify bad behavior…and have it pushed and rationalized by media….they will ape the same. This remains why character matters…why norms matter…and why we desperately need Right Wing media to fix itself.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:37 amAJ, If your identity and sense of self are tied to a group it’s painful when the group does something wrong. Painful enough that there’s huge motivation to find reasons why it wasn’t your team that did it. If you can’t avoid that you want to minimize it or focus on some other aspect of it.
Time123 (235fc4) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:43 amMisinformation spread across social media like wildfire after a riot began at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday.
Many of the claims repeated the idea that it was actually members of Antifa or anarchist groups that stormed the Capitol rather than supporters of President Donald Trump.
The VERIFY team has investigated numerous claims of Antifa involvement, and at this point, none of them have proved credible. On the other hand, there are photos and videos that clearly show Trump supporters involved in all aspects.
Time123 (7cca75) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:44 am— “Trump’s Waterloo?”
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:45 am— “Just the loo. The turd got flushed.”
“He crossa the Rubiconi and gotta plate a pasta fazool innaface.”
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:51 amThe DC Police, who were belatedly asked for assistance, were apparently the ones who got the situation under control.
They keep the peace in a big city day-in and day-out and know how to separate the sheep from the goats, and in DC are guaranteed not to have schnitzel-slurpers in their administration and command structure.
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:08 amWith control of both Houses and the Presidency, the Democrats would be criminally negligently not to purge all schnitzel-slurpers from exempt positions in the Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms now.
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:12 amDustin wrote:
Uhhh, these people are just 12 days away from losing their jobs anyway. Might as well use the Capitol kerfuffle as an excuse to get out of town early.
But it also protects the resigning cabinet members. If they are no longer in the cabinet, then seeking a majority of the cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment doesn’t affect them. They don’t earn the ire of Republicans by siding against President Trump and they don’t get excoriated in the media for not siding against the President.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:17 amUhhh exactly. They are selfish cowards. Trump is still fueling the people who wanted to take hostages and have a civil war. The GOP is failing to lift a finger because ‘yawn, who cares’. Cowards.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:31 amAs an American living in a kinder and gentler age, I’ll go with Conan the Barbarian, a purely American hero created by Robert E. Howard and interpreted by John Milius:
Lament, Trumpkins!
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:33 amDana in Kentucky:
Your “Capitol kerfuffle” has become a federal murder investigation of a Capitol police officer.
Rip Murdock (b620f4) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:35 amPaul Montagu (77c694) — 1/8/2021 @ 5:16 am:
Send him to Iran.
Rip Murdock (b620f4) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:38 amMr Finkelman wrote:
My mistake; I thought that you were from Philly.
Rian Thal was the cute little white girl who was a ‘party planner’ and, on the not-so-down low, a drug dealer. When she was killed, in 2009, Philadelphia saw 302 homicides, and that was down from 331 the year before, and 391 in 2007. The local media were, by then, jaded about killings, and no one paid much attention to when yet another young black male was shot dead.
But Miss Thal was young, white, sort of pretty, and involved in the Philly hip hop scene. The media gushed over her for days, the Inquirer having front page stories, complete with photos, several days in a row. She was, at bottom, just another drug dealer getting killed in a city where a lot of drug dealers met untimely ends. Thing is, almost all of those other drug dealers who went early to their eternal rewards were black guys, so nobody cared about them.
And it hasn’t changed. The Inquirer ran sizable articles, two days in a row, about a white kid who was shot, apparently accidentally, from a park near Quakertown, and a top high school basketball player who was killed, but, for most of the 499 homicides in 2020, crickets.
And it’s continuing in 2021. After a record year for homicides, there were 11 as of 11:59 PM yesterday, up from 6 on the same day last year, and there’s not even a blurb about it in the Inquirer.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:40 amNic (896fdf) — 1/7/2021 @ 9:39 pm
We have to make sure it was done at that level.Trump had fired the Secretary of Defense and other high level Pentagon civilian officials (or they had quit because they didn’t want to do something Trump wanted the to do) and this was one of the two agencies (the other was OMB) that Joe Biden had complained that they were not fully briefing his people.
And it was speculated that it was because Trump wanted to pull out all American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq before he left office, or was planning a bombing raid on Iran.
So now people think it could be this. The inaction.
And nk thinks this means it was Trump all the way.
But what Trump was doing was futile – even buying another day, which is a bad enough. They were anyway counting on Senators to do that, although the delay wasn’t as much as Giuliani wanted – but so you could say maybe they wanted still more time. But getting a delay till even Friday would accomplish nothing.
But, I’m thinking that people like maybe Lin Wood (more likely someone less well known) could have been lying to Trump that it would matter, because then they’d get some state legislatures to change ther electors (which they couldn’t even if they wanted to, but that’s how big a lie it was)
And I say, that if somebody was lying to Trump about strategy they could have been lying about tactics too
As for the Sect of Defense delaying, somebody in the White House, claiming to speak for president Trump could have been the mastermind, perhaps aided with by someone he’d persuaded Trump to put at the Pentagon. Eventually Vice President Mike Pence gave permission because Trump was still AWOL and they ran with it.
In other words it just isn’t clear and it doesn’t make sense for Trump to arrange the storming of the Capitol but might make sense fr someone who wanted to destroy the Republican Party but gain something himself from that. I mean, if someone is an evil genius, he wouldn’t have been so stupid so as to think that he could gain for Trump an extra term with the storming of the Capitol building by a bunch of civilians, but must have had some other goal in mind.
They were informed it was going to be a peaceful demonstration by someone they relied on to be honest and to know. The demonstration at the Ellipse had been peaceful.
He could have been paralyzed. It didn’t start right away as soon as they got to the Capitol so it could have looked like it was just a few people who had gotten out of hand. He wouldn’t want to indicate that something went wrong with a demonstration he’d been involved with. He was eventually persuaded to say something because of the idea they might attack or harm police. It was out of his control, but he had been involved in staging it.
What they need is an investigation, and not the kind conducted in secret by a special prosecutor.
And it’s more important to find out who plotted this than to give some secondary characters long prison terms, and it’s more important to find out who else was involved and not lay it all very simply at the feet of Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump did not have an endgame that made any sense, he could not have been the chief plotter. And we don’t even know what exactly he plotted. He could have been told the demonstration would scare Republican Senators politically and there’d be ore objections and more debates on the Electors.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:41 amMr M wrote:
To whom?
I noted about Bill Kristol, who was so never Trump that he destroyed The Weekly Standard over it, that he had no real future anymore. The Democrats found him a useful tool, but they’ll never trust a neo-conservative, so the Dems will pay him no attention. And his anti-Trump attitude was so virulent, perhaps even more than our esteemed host’s, that the Republicans will have no use for him either.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:45 am288. Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:31 am
No, he stopped. Perhaps to get back on
Twitter.
He put out a video in which he said he said thre would be a (good) transition.
He just tweeted:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1347569870578266115
He also had what sounds like a farewell
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:51 amBig news, but not surprise news: Trump will be a no-show at Biden’s inauguration. He’ll be a sore loser to the very end, the sorest loser in American history.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:52 amOur Windy City barrister wrote:
In Harold Lamb’s 1927 biography of Genghis Khan, that’s how the conqueror’s words were translated. I had assumed that was the source of Conan’s line in the movie.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:54 amI never rejected the idea Putin had blackmail material on him.
But Trump did have an endgame in mind here. That call to Georgia proves he was serious the whole time. He really wanted to apply pressure to many states, in the context of violence and Cruz’s little election panel, and keep his office. The fact that it was a very risky, very bad plan is not a surprise because Trump’s plans always fail, are always this late gear change from lazy to desperate.
Normal people have a hard time accepting Trump really thinks this way, because how could someone who made it this far in life be idiotic and evil? But maybe that’s how the world actually works. Maybe guys like Putin or billionare political donors can trust perverts to do what they are told, but can’t trust good men with a heart.
I do agree with you that a real investigation needs to be expansive and not just lay it all at Trump’s feet.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:54 amNo, he did not. He always does that crap where he’s forced to say one thing and then backtracks. To you and me, that’s inconsistent. To idiots, the black people are coming to take their cookies and they don’t really think too hard about the inconsistency.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:55 amMr Finkelman wrote:
This assumes that it was plotted at all, as opposed to some radical rowdies who simply let themselves get out of control.
An actual plot to overthrow the election would have had armed men storming the Capitol and killing multiple members of Congress, so that President Trump could declare martial law. The Beer Hall Putsch was planned better than this.
The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:05 amDustin, Also there’s an element of his supporters thinking he has to placate the deep state up until WWG1WGA and trump arrests everyone that’s part of the deep state child sex trafficking satanic sacrifice cannibalism ring. They can tell when he means it and when he’s reading from the teleprompter.
Time123 (7cca75) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:09 amIt was.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:10 amOther Dana, Why would you assume Trump is any more competent at this then he was at other things he tried to do as president?
Time123 (235fc4) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:12 amYep, they are fact impervious. They will either assume Trump is a deep fake or that he is playing a clever con on the deep state.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:13 amIn Harold Lamb’s 1927 biography of Genghis Khan, that’s how the conqueror’s words were translated. I had assumed that was the source of Conan’s line in the movie.
Me, too (and for whatever reason, I remembered it as from Subotai not Genghis). Oh, well, you know my opinion of history.
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:15 amI saw on Twitter a pic of a forum where the posters were confused as to why Trump backed off his “we love you” part of the speech. A few answered something along the lines of, “They got to him.”
We’ll wait and see if Trump backtracks on what he said yesterday, which backtracked from two days ago. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
JohnnyAgreeable (c49787) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:21 amYou do know that with the murder of the police officer, everyone who participated in that criminal enterprise is now subject to the death penalty, right? Down to the charter bus drivers? (Just ask any Texas prosecutor if you don’t believe me.)
That’s why people are resigning from Trump’s cabinet. Not to avoid the 25th Amendment (which Pence would never do), but to disassociate themselves from a criminal enterprise.
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:21 amMy completely unsubstantiated opinion on this:
Trump-loyal pentagon officials didn’t set up security not because they wanted the protestors to storm the capital, but because they didn’t want any optics of Trump protestors clashing with police in riot gear that might generate unflattering comparisons to BLM.
I doubt there was any sort of high level organization, but individuals or small groups definitely had some plans on what they were going to do at the capital (guy setting up gallows, twist-tie man, pipe bomb bringer)
Trump doesn’t actually know how to accomplish anything. His plans entirely consist of yelling at people to make what he wants happen and then firing them if they don’t. He’s trying to fire up his base to somehow make him still president, but has no clue how that could actually happen. He told the protestors to go to the capital and tell Congress to make him still President, and they gave it a shot.
Manotaur (0c90cd) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:26 amTed Cruz would like you to just forget the last 4 years
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Dave (1bb933) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:31 amLying Ted is pitiful, but I don’t pity him.
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:35 amVery thoughtful. Now his arrest won’t interfere with the festivities.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:38 amThis makes sense to me.
Time123 (7cca75) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:46 amThe fact that it was poorly planned doesn’t mean it was just some rowdies getting out of hand in the heat of the moment. There was plenty of online activity leading up to Jan. 6 in which Trumpers spoke in terms of civil war and revolution.
People in high places (powerful media and even Congress) invoked 1776 and revolutionary history. On the day after, Limbaugh likened the riots to Lexington and Concord. Hard-core Trumpers are saying that one battle lost doesn’t mean the war is over.
There’s also this:
So yes, die-hard Trumpers have in fact planned to used forceful means to get their way.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:47 amDana of the clauses and predicates etc., circa post #294
Megyn Kelly is the cautionary tale for seeking strange new respect and getting wedgied for it. But quiet part out loud, a lot of the Kristol/Boot/Jonah Goldberg branch Never Trumpism was/is a visceral reaction to Trump-Drumpf-Hitler…and who could blame them?
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:49 am@300 –
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:50 amCapitol rioters planned for weeks in plain sight.
One current Metro D.C. police officer said in a public Facebook post that off-duty police officers and members of the military, who were among the rioters, flashed their badges and I.D. cards as they attempted to overrun the building.
So yes, die-hard Trumpers have in fact planned to used forceful means to get their way.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:47 am
Fragging to be re-introduced into the nation’s lexicon after 50 years?
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:53 amWell, the Boogaloos who have actually murdered police officers were active military, but police-looking badges and IDs can be gotten anywhere, from a box of Cracker Jacks to donating to the local sheriff’s reelection campaign (ask Gayle Sayers).
nk (1d9030) — 1/8/2021 @ 8:57 amGale Sayers’ son was a bit of a troublemaker, but more a preppy than a thug, at my high school. I also sat one seat ahead of one of Farrakhan’s sons in a geometry class. And the kicker is that R.Kelly went there, left without graduating, but would go there on dual purpose to visit his old choir teacher and troll for bait.
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:12 amPutin Gleeful After Trumpsters’ Violent Insurrection
……
Russian state media had played its own part in amplifying Donald Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud and gleefully predicting that post-election violence would inevitably follow. “There will be blood,” asserted Russian lawmakers and state media talking heads, a prospect they considered to be “excellent.”
And indeed, there was blood. Vesti reporter Denis Davydov was embedded in the thick of it all, interviewing sweaty seditionists with bloody knuckles in between their attempts to storm Capitol Hill. “The United States never experienced anything like this,” Davydov noted. In his report for Vesti, U.S. correspondent Valentin Bogdanov asserted that the violence is not over: “While the Democrats gained control of Congress and the Senate, that doesn’t mean they can control the minds of the people. January 6, 2021 is forever written into the American political calendar. For some, it’s a dark date they will try to forget. For others, it’s a day to remember—or perhaps to repeat.”
Political scientist Yury Rogulyov told state media channel Rossiya-24: “The discontent will remain, the divisions will continue, but the big question is to which degree the Republicans will follow in Trump’s footsteps. If they do it, the crisis will be extended and America’s healing—if it’s even possible—will take a long time.”
……Addressing the foiled coup, Maria Zakharova, official spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, blamed the “archaic” electoral system and the U.S. media—and not President Trump’s incendiary messaging.
Russian state TV outlets followed the official line with precision, defending Trump and baselessly maligning U.S. elections. “Democrats are blaming Trump for undermining democracy, but democracy in the United States ended with the unverifiable, unreliable mail-in voting. Democracy ended with the archaic, non-transparent electoral system in the United States,” claimed Igor Kozhevin, the host of the state TV news show Vesti on channel Rossiya-1. His program included clips from Fox News, whose messaging during the Trump years became almost indiscernible from Kremlin-controlled state media outlets.
…… “It’s one humiliation after the next,” surmised Vesti. The program’s U.S. correspondent, Valentin Bogdanov, predicted that Trump “may soon be declared insane, accused of being a spy, or thrown into prison.” State TV programs repeatedly brought up the possibility that Trump may end up seeking asylum in Russia, emphasizing that it’s a very serious matter and not some kind of a sick joke. …..
Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda argued: “The United States has long insisted that it is perhaps the only standard of democracy and order. But the inability of the American political system to transfer power peacefully and legally from one presidential team to another has torn the fragile veil from a failed example of democracy that has been carefully imposed on both Americans and the world.” Political scientist Igor Shatrov added: “The storefront is broken, shattered. It will be patched up, but the most valuable thing was stolen from the display: trust in American democratic institutions.”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:20 am…….
Putin smiled.
Now he’s back in style, like the guy hanging onto his disco ‘stache from the 1970s.
To be fair, he wears a bow-tie. He was never going to fit in with Trump anyway.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:24 amDonald Trump’s Final Days
…..
In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch. The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory. When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.
This was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election. 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.
……
If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign. This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr. Pence. And it would give Mr. Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate.
This might also stem the flood of White House and Cabinet resignations that are understandable as acts of conscience but could leave the government dangerously unmanned. Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, in particular should stay at his post.
We know an act of grace by Mr. Trump isn’t likely. In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.
It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:24 amRIP Tommy Lasorda.
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:29 amThe National Guard armory is 2 miles from the Capital building
The Marine barracks at 8th & I is about 3000 feet from the Capitol. That’s about a 4 minute hustle of a company of marines, who would restore order with amazing speed.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:29 am@272. Yep.
274.Ashli babbett’s death will be remember as the kent state shooting deaths are still remembered.
Nope.
Except it will.
Avoid choirs; you’re tone deaf.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:37 amI remember the revenge oklahoma city bombings.
Yeah, and you wonder why your fringe gets no respect. Those were mostly civilians who got murdered. Revenge on whom? Everybody else? Women? “Coloreds”? Men who have girlfriends? People who have jobs?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:37 amDana – we have video of insurgents inside the capitol carrying zip ties. These can be used to tie people up.
We have photos of a noose assembled on the back steps.
I doubt the whole crowd knew of this, and some in the crowd clearly had bigger plans
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:38 amHaving watched the “insurrection” and “overthrow” attempt on Wednesday, Putin has instructed his military people in Russia to cease making nukes and start stockpiling goofy-looking idiots wearing viking caps.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:39 amBut I’d rather Biden not issue any pardons or extraditions.
It might have been possible once, but not now. When Biden spoke during the attack, he offered Trump a way out — call this off now — and Trump missed that chance, too. I expect Trump to be arrested on Jan 20th.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:40 am@322. Great guy; great loss. Another baseball stat to make one feel older.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:41 amHaving watched the “insurrection” and “overthrow” attempt on Wednesday, Putin has…
Paid a bonus to his Troll Corps, and increased the funding for Proud Boys.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:41 amTommy Lasorda. Damn. I still remember the miracle Dodgers of 1988. Except for Hershiser, they were not a team of greats, but they ended up a great team.
Only World Series game I attended in person was 1988’s Game 1. What a effing thrill that was at the end.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:44 amPaul – ahe will be remembered as both, by different segments of society.
This has moved a lot of non trumpists. But the trumpists are dug in.
Yougov has a poll out showing 45 percent of Republicans support the break in.
They are not going away.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:45 amYou would think that the FBI might have picked up on the Internet “chatter” before this attack. Like when they planned it on Facebook. Unlike 9/11, it’s quite clear that the president wanted this to happen, and thought it would help his cause. Wrong again, in a sea of wrong over the last 4 years.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:47 am#316 Active duty military? Wow. They are not going to get the Chesa Boudin charging guidelines.
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:47 amI’d already be in Burkina Faso trying to sign up with contractors that do resupply for the French Foreign Legion.
#318
Farrakhans hair and bowtie have good geometry
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:48 am310.Lying Ted is pitiful, but I don’t pity him.
Wise. He’s not courting your zapport for 2024; Canadian Cruz haz hiz eyez onz zee 74 million-plus zuckers in zearch of zheir next flag carrier.
“Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.” – W.C. Fields 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:51 amReally the only thing to discuss here, versus some of the more violent BLM/Antifa events, is the culpability of the news media in covering them so very differently. Clearly the news is too important to be left to the newspeople.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:53 amI dunno, dteveg, today’s FFL probably ain’t much different from a residential tower outside of a major French city.
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:53 am#332
I supported the yelling outside the barricades. Beyond that there was a drop of support similar to the drop in the Marianas Trench
Certainly will not be Harrising any bail money.
The young man who was right next to the woman who got shot got a hell of a civics lesson
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:54 amBut he’ll never get past 65 MM on account of being a Cruz, Canadian might not matter as much.
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:54 amSo, the House is fixing to get ready to being the impeachment process. Can’t these people do anything quickly? They declared war on December 8th. What has happened to us?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:55 amOnly World Series game I attended in person was 1988’s Game 1.
Saw it in unfriendly territory-Ghirardelli’s in San Francisco.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 9:58 am@341: Just more kubuki theater…
whembly (c30c83) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:02 am@290. It was a kerfuffle. You must be young:
‘The Washington, D.C., riots of 1968 were a four-day period of violent civil unrest and rioting following the assassination of leading African American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968. Part of the broader King-assassination riots that affected at least 110 U.S. cities, those in Washington, D.C.—along with those in Chicago and Baltimore—were among those with the greatest numbers of participants.
On Friday, April 5, President Johnson dispatched 11,850 federal troops and 1,750 D.C. Army National Guardsmen to assist the overwhelmed D.C. police force. Marines mounted machine guns on the steps of the Capitol and Army soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Regiment guarded the White House. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina and 6th Cavalry Regiment from Fort Meade, Maryland were among the principal federal forces sent to the city. At one point, on April 5, rioting reached within two blocks of the White House before rioters retreated.
The occupation of Washington was the largest of any American city since the Civil War.
Federal troops and National Guardsmen imposed a strict curfew, worked riot control, patrolled the streets, guarded looted stores, and provided aid to those who were displaced by the rioting. They continued to remain after the rioting had officially ceased to protect against a second riot and further damage.
By Sunday, April 7, when the city was considered pacified, 13 people had been killed in fires, by police officers, or by rioters. An additional 1,097 people were injured and over 7,600 people were arrested. -source, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Washington,_D.C.,_riots
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:03 amI’m pretty sure the US could find me in Burkina Faso. It’d be like where’s white Waldo in a sea of black Africans… “oh he’s right over there”.
If there are active duty people swept up in this, they are going to get a literal hell of a lesson in Military Justice. I think thats a long term hard labor minimum, death maximum but am too lazy to look it up
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:03 amAs a Cub fan, I took no small pleasure in being gifted tickets gor and attending the White Sox’s sole postseason loss in 2005 (Game 1 of the ALCS against the should-be Anaheim Angels)
urbanleftbehind (cdbfba) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:04 amIf you really get in the weeds of successful coups in history, they usually come after failed coups. Aphrael is right that some of these guys were planning hostage taking and probably executions. Already we see a lot of ‘golly don’t worry about it, he’s gone soon’ thoughts. That’s naive or complicit.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:06 amThe absolute best playoff series ever was the 2004 ALCS. The wife and I watched it all, start to finish for reasons that are too hard to explain. Games 4 and 5 were some of the best baseball ever played, topped only by the 9th inning of 1986 ALCS Game 5.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:10 am@323 I understand why they didn’t send the Marines, especially since there were numerous bodies of law enforcement AND the National Guard available. There are extremely strict guidelines for regular military acting within the borders.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:11 amTrump will be arrested and changed with seditious conspiracy shortly after leaving office. There will be no pardon. He might beat the charges but by then he will have been impeached and convicted on the same changes, which he will NOT beat, and barred from federal office.
His financial empire will collapse under multiple tax and bank fraud judgements and he will die poor, alone and hated.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:14 amThere are extremely strict guidelines for regular military acting within the borders.
Sure. But it’s DC, not Montana, and this was an insurrection and a direct attack on the government.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:15 am@343./@341: Just more kubuki theater…
Yep. And Speaker Drama Queen has made it publicly known SHE is monitoring command and control of America’s nukes w/t JCOS. If only she’d stood in her office in the Capitol and scolded ol’ “Elmo Grizzle” for putting his feet upon the desk and swiping some mail w/equal resolve.
Again, it’s all about THEM. Despicable b-tches an b-stards, all of ’em.
No balls. No courage. No guts.
For a group who clearly cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, their top, number one priority now is to accelerate getting the damn Covid vaccine out to the citizens ASAP and get $2000 to hurting American locked down at home w/o jobs to go to.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:17 am“The fact that it was poorly planned doesn’t mean it was…”
It’s actually very lucky that there wasn’t a gun fight….and that the representatives were evacuated in time…things could have escalated. And the ease that they were able to get in…and have their 5 minutes of fame…suggests we will likely see more of it in the future…potentially with individuals that are more motivated and more malevolent. The false equivalencies, false flag conspiracies, and down-playing rationalizations are all missing the significance of why anarchy is bad. It’s nice not to have to listen to tortured rationalizations here.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:20 am@347. Dustin, these guys and gals w/their zip ties and phone selfies weren’t Black September circa Munich, 1972.
They were F-Troop.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:22 amThe young man who was right next to the woman who got shot got a hell of a civics lesson
Everyone in that crowd they can identify will get a further one soon.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:23 amManchin is striking early!
whembly (c30c83) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:23 amExtremists made little secret of ambitions to ‘occupy’ Capitol in weeks before attack.
And they’re not finished.
This is on Trump and everyone else who has peddled the notion that the election must have been stolen, even though pre-election polling and the Trump campaign’s internal polling showed that a Biden win was the most likely outcome.
This is on everyone who has promoted the belief that the Republic is finished if the other party wins an election.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:24 am@356 whoops, comment stuck in moderation.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:24 amOur leaders failed us.
Trump did his typical over the top rhetoric and was again shown that his words have an effect on how people act out. Its been 5 years now.
The left showed that tantrums are to be encouraged and consequences are removed.
Great recipe for disaster.
The part I don’t know how to fix is unequal treatment. Is it OK to attack Federal facilities and personnel or not?
I’m of the opinion that the answer should be no down to the level of pissing on the door of the BLM trailer in Mexican Hat, UT. I believe there should be leeway to enter a facility open to the public and to protest verbally or silently for a period of time and leave peacefully.
People don’t like to see protected classes and sliding scales based on race or affiliation, but that genie left the bottle a long time ago and I think that is one of the biggest obstacles to moving on and coming together as a nation. It’s like stacking up red and blue alternating dominos to infinity and pushing them over… “my turn”, “no its my turn”
steveg (43b7a5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:25 am@352. Not often I wholeheartedly agree with ol’ DC, but here I do. Insurrect them again!
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:25 amThis is on everyone who has promoted the belief that the Republic is finished if the other party wins an election.
This is our own fault. We have allowed the federal government to become so large and powerful that elections really are existential.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:27 amThe plotting before Jan. 6 included discussions of who should be murdered.
Don’t assume the Trumper insurrectionists have all decided that killing federal employees or state officials might not be ideal.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:28 am@355. And the ‘folks’ who ran and hid then went right back to vacuous speeches and scheduled vacations learned nothing.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:30 amFrom the OP
…the immoral sentiment that “we get to do what the worst people on the other side have done, and in fact we get to escalate it!” is not unique to the right.
Time123 (235fc4) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:31 am“They were F-Troop.”
No one knew for sure at the outset
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:39 amSix Republican lawmakers among rioters as police release photos of wanted
At least six Republican state legislators took part in events surrounding the storming of the US Capitol. West Virginia Delegate Derrick Evans posted a video of himself entering the building but later deleted it, The New York Times reported.
Tennessee state lawmaker Terri Lynn Weaver told the Tennessean that she was “in the thick of it” during the rally before the storming of the Capitol. She said there was “Just a whole heck of a lot of patriots here”. She later tweeted a picture of the mob at the base of the Capitol, saying: “Epic and historic day gathering with fellow Patriots from all over the nation DC.”
Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase denied that any violence had taken place, despite the overwhelming evidence, and later accused the police of murder after the shooting of a California woman inside the Capitol. “A veteran who was brutally murdered by Capitol Police today,” Chase wrote on Facebook according to the Henrico Citizen.
“These were not rioters and looters; these were Patriots who love their country and do not want to see our great republic turn into a socialist country. I was there with the people; I know. Don’t believe the fake media narrative,” she wrote.
Missouri State Representative Justin Hill skipped his swearing-in ceremony to be in DC. He marched to the Capitol but didn’t enter, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported him as saying.
Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano made sure that a busload of people could be in DC. He said in a video that he didn’t participate in the clashes with police, The Hill reported.
Michigan State Representative Matt Maddock was also at the scene, according to The Hill.
…….
…….Four rioters died and 56 officers were injured in the ensuing chaos. One officer remains in hospital after being beaten and tased by the mob.
Charges include inciting a riot and weapons violations. Rioters scaled the Capitol building, defaced statues, committed countless acts of vandalism and fought with police.
…….
The suspects include Holocaust deniers, White supremacists, and conspiracy theorists.
…….
“The suspects include Holocaust deniers, White supremacists, and conspiracy theorists.”
In other words, the modern Republican Party.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:41 amThe “we’re all gonna die” notion is what led self-styled “patriots” to aim for killing people.
A large portion of your fellow citizens have voted for a more powerful federal government than you would like. I favor a less powerful federal government. I don’t favor a “by any means necessary” approach to getting it – much less keeping a demagogic cult-hero in the presidency, while he preens with his “I alone can fix it” attitude, adds enormous sums to the debt, and redefines patriotism as unqualified allegiance to himself.
The Trumper rank and file might like to yell “freedom,” but many Trumpers have openly derided the small-government conservative philosophy as an antiquarian intellectual exercise or a tool of elitists.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:45 amDCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:03 am:
Don’t worry, the insurrectionists are just getting started.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:45 amSome CEOs Fire Rioters, Call for Trump’s Removal From Office
……
A number of companies said they fired employees who participated in the riot at the Capitol after seeing employees in photos and videos posted to social media.
Goosehead Insurance said Thursday that Paul Davis, an associate general counsel, was no longer employed by the company. In an email to employees Thursday, Goosehead CEO Mark Jones said the company was “surprised and dismayed to learn that one of our employees, without our knowledge or support, participated in a violent demonstration at our nation’s capital yesterday.” A spokesman for Goosehead, a publicly traded company based in Westlake, Texas, said Mr. Davis had been hired in mid-2020.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:49 am……
Managers at Navistar Direct Marketing, a printing company in Frederick, Md., saw on Twitter that a man wearing a company badge was among rioters inside the U.S. Capitol. After reviewing photos, the company said the employee had been “terminated for cause.”
……
Rich Lesser, CEO of Boston Consulting Group, said the business community must be clear-eyed about President Trump’s behavior, as well as those members of Congress who acted as enablers. “If we look past these actions and treat them as an isolated event by engaging and supporting these individuals, then we also risk being complicit in encouraging future actions that destabilize our country,” he said. Mr. Lesser didn’t suggest specific actions businesses should take, but said companies have an important role to play.
……
Time123 (235fc4) — 1/8/2021 @ 6:05 am
With all due respect; this isn’t a valid argument and it’s not one I’m trying to make. I’m also not sure this is a functional argument because you’ve embedded “excusing”, “moral high ground”, and “justification”.
The functional argument wouldn’t be in those terms. It’s a much simpler game theory style approach that doesn’t ascribe any moral value to either side or to any of the actions. It’s just the simple statement that if two sides are in conflict an escalation by one side will result in a matching escalation by the other if that is possible. Put into context the functional argument would be that BLM/Antifa engaged in political violence and by doing so demonstrated its use within the context of current US politics. A tool once demonstrated will be used by the other side if they can.
I understand that we disagree on whether BLM engaged in political violence. It’s also debatable whether it was effective so several of us will have different views on “successfully” engaged, etc. I’ve also heard the argument that BLM/Antifa violence was acceptable because it speaks to a greater truth, i.e. it is morally justified. These are all discussions worth having but those drift into the moral argument area.
frosty (f27e97) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:54 am@361 — One of the earliest and most fervent “Trump intellectuals” argued that the GOP was too heavily dominated by libertarians (!), that Republicans like Romney were all “heartless,” that talk about restructuring Social Security was cruel, and that a real conservative party should promote a national health-care plan.
Trump was not elected to restore limited government or do anything about the national debt.
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 10:55 am(New) Video shows fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol
Two previously unreported video clips obtained by The Washington Post shed new light on the fatal shooting by police of Trump supporter and Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt as she and other rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Babbitt and others were attempting to breach a barricaded door inside the Capitol building on Wednesday afternoon, angrily demanding that three U.S. Capitol Police officers who were guarding the door step aside, one of the clips shows. The officers moved away as colleagues in tactical gear arrived behind the rioters, according to the clip and other video posted online.
Roughly 35 seconds after the officers moved away, as she climbed up toward a broken section of the unguarded door, Babbitt was shot by an officer on the other side.
……
A second clip, recorded approximately three minutes before the shooting, appears to show lawmakers and officials in the Speaker’s Lobby, just yards from Babbitt and others trying to get through. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Rules Committee, was one of those present, a spokesperson confirmed.
As the lawmakers and officials were being evacuated, one rioter wearing a fur-lined hat repeatedly punched the doorway’s glass panels immediately behind the officers, creating extensive damage, the video footage shows. The rioter tried to get around one officer, identified by a patch on his jacket as K. Yetter, while several rioters yelled at the police to let them through.
“We don’t want to hurt no one, we just want to go inside,” one told them.
Another one yelled, “F— the blue!”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 11:08 am…….
From the “Extremists made little secret” article:
Radegunda (20775b) — 1/8/2021 @ 11:18 am“Trump will be arrested and changed with seditious conspiracy shortly after leaving office”
And whatever government facility holds him for hearings, arraignment, confinement, or arrest is going to make the storming of the Bastille look like the changing of the guard.
“immoral sentiment that “we get to do what the worst people on the other side have done, and in fact we get to escalate it!” is not unique to the right.”
Moral sentiments rise from interpersonal dynamics. Change the dynamics, change the morals. If one side is always escalating their worst, and always rewarded by doing so, nothing’s going to dull the moral sentiments, shared or not, faster.
“You do know that with the murder of the police officer, everyone who participated in that criminal enterprise is now subject to the death penalty, right? Down to the charter bus drivers? (Just ask any Texas prosecutor if you don’t believe me.)
That’s why people are resigning from Trump’s cabinet. Not to avoid the 25th Amendment (which Pence would never do), but to disassociate themselves from a criminal enterprise.”
Siri, bring up the first result for ‘photographic negative of a Q poster saying that Pence will be executed for treason.’
I get it, y’all are mad and murderous, and you want to torture and murder a whole bunch of people associated with the other side’s politics because you’re a souless, friendless, hack whose ideology gives them no comfort because nobody shares or practices it. I’d say you should talk it out, but I think you’re quite beyond convincing at this point. May life teach you otherwise.
Political Onlyfans (3e69e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:00 pm“…you’re a souless, friendless, hack…”
Then why are you here…and what does it make you?
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:05 pm@365. Not if you saw the rally.
“Agarn, medicine man say to my ancestor, ‘I think we lost. Where the heck are we? That how Hekawe tribe got name.’ -Chief Wild Eagle [Frank de Kova] ‘F-Troop’ ABC TV 1965-67
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/8/2021 @ 12:13 pmInternet detectives are identifying scores of pro-Trump rioters at the Capitol. Some have already been fired.
……
……While police and the FBI work to identify and arrest members of the mob, online detectives are also crowdsourcing information and doxing them — exposing the rioters to criminal prosecution, but also more immediate action from their bosses.
Since most of the rioters stormed the Capitol maskless, online detectives had a unique opportunity to easily identify them. And many made it even easier — they live-streamed their participation and later bragged about their escapades.
Using journalists’ photos and videos, as well as live-streamed videos from rioters, untold Twitter users and Instagram accounts have been feverishly working since Wednesday to ID and name the participants who stormed the halls of the Capitol, ransacking lawmakers’ offices and occupying the House Chamber.
Some, like the Instagram account @homegrownterrorists, amassed huge followings in a few hours. When posters believe they’ve identified someone, the images are updated with names and details about the person — like their social media handle, hometown or job title.
……Through early Thursday, police said they arrested 69 people from at least 20 states and the District for charges ranging from unlawful entry of public property, to violating curfew and assaulting a police officer. The department is also offering a $1,000 reward for tips that lead to an arrest.
……
……A teacher in Allentown, Pa., was put on temporary leave while the school district completes an investigation into his participation in the melee. Brad Rukstales, the chief executive of Cogensia, a marketing data company in Chicago, was arrested on Wednesday for his involvement in the riots. In a statement on Twitter, Cogensia said it had placed Rukstales “on leave of absence while we assess further.”
Rukstales told WBBM that he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time and I regret my part in that.”
“Everything that happened yesterday I think was absolutely terrible,” Rukstales said.
A lieutenant sheriff in Bexar County, Tex., who has been on leave since October as the department investigates allegations of an inappropriate relationship with an inmate, is under a second investigation after she posted multiple images of breaking into the Capitol on her Facebook account, according to KSAT. A Sanford, Fla., firefighter is also on administrative leave and under investigation after he was spotted among the mob in photographs, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 1:11 pm…….
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/8/2021 @ 7:54 am
He was serious, as far it goes, but it was going nowhere. He even lied to Raffensperger about being about to flip other states (because Georgia alone would not do it for him)
I think political pressure, in the context of future elections, and it wasn’t working where it would make a difference.
What I think was was this wasn’t Trump’s plan. People who were lying to him came up with these plans. They had an endgame – for themselves. Trump didn’t. He wasn’t so much desperate as he was not willing to give up with the odds against him. He didn’t think his chances were that low because the people talking to him were taking confidently.
I think he was idiotic. That’s why I say he had no endgame. But he believed in relying on other people. He tried to assess how much other people believed in their plan.
The Democrats will bbe sorely tempted to do this.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/8/2021 @ 1:20 pmHouse Democrats move rapidly toward impeaching Trump a second time
…..
…..[T]op Democrats were more forthright about proceeding quickly with impeachment, and some lawmakers said Friday that an impeachment vote could come together as soon as Monday or Tuesday if the decision is made to move forward.
“Donald Trump should be impeached, convicted and removed from office immediately,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a tweet Thursday.
House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in an MSNBC interview after the conference call Friday that “the sentiment of the caucus is moving toward impeachment: “The American people have seen enough, and they are ready for us to do the job of impeaching this man.”
In a signal of the deep support for further action, more than 60 House Democrats signed a letter late Thursday asking top Democratic leaders to reconvene the House as soon as possible to “show the American people that Congress is continuing to meet its responsibilities in the face of extraordinary threats” and take action, including a possible impeachment.
…..
Two draft articles of impeachment have been circulated among House Democrats that cite Trump’s incitement of the mob and his delayed decision to encourage it to disperse as high crimes and misdemeanors necessitating removal.
One four-page draft that had 131 co-sponsors as of noon Friday impeaches Trump on the grounds of “Incitement of Insurrection” and accuses him of having “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government.”
“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coordinate branch of government,” it reads. “He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), an author of that draft, said it was “unthinkable” that Congress would treat Wednesday’s events as just “one more unfortunate faux pas by the president.”
“We just suffered the most massive, violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol in American history since the War of 1812,” he said. “He has counseled and invited an attack on the Congress of the United States itself.”
No Republican House members have indicated that they would back impeachment.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/8/2021 @ 1:38 pm…….
The House could have other options to take action in the coming days. Raskin has written a bill to create a commission on presidential disabilities to prepare for action under the 25th Amendment, and other House Democrats have called for censure of GOP lawmakers for inciting violence.
…….