Once Again Trump’s Self-Victimhood Distracts from His Negligence

It will be the subject of extensive discussion going forward how plans for an insurrection made in plain sight on social media went from being viewed, by the FBI and DHS, as First Amendment protected speech to so dangerous that social media shut down key influencer accounts and Apple and Google kicked entire platforms out of their stores within days. But that’s what happened.

On Thursday, a various law enforcement agencies tried to explain why they had allowed the Capitol to be overrun by terrorists, they claimed not to have seen the signs many of us were seeing of plans for violence.

Federal and local officials said Thursday they did not have intelligence suggesting any violent mob was preparing to attack the Capitol, even as demonstrators were publicly saying on social media they were not planning a typical protest.

Despite weeks of preparations, “obviously, what happened no one anticipated,” Michael Sherwin, acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters in a telephone press conference Thursday. “Things could have been done better.”

[snip]

Police were caught flat-footed the next day. DC Police Chief Robert Contee told reporters Thursday there was no intelligence that suggested there would be a breach of the US Capitol on January 6. Three DHS sources, who usually receive such reports, were unaware of a threat assessment being shared from the DHS intelligence office ahead of Wednesday’s siege.

But just over a day later, Apple announced that it was giving Parler 24 hours to come into compliance with its moderations guidelines; Google just removed Parler from its stores entirely. Twitter first removed various QAnon supporters, including Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn. Then, finally, after allowing him to Tweet twice after a short-term ban, Twitter announced it was removing Trump permanently and those social media platforms that hadn’t already done so removed Trump as well.

Trump spent the night trying to find workarounds, using the POTUS account, attempting to have one of his sons tweet out his content, and having his social media staffer tweet on his own account. Unless the Tweet included a presidential message, the content was removed.

In response, Trump, his supporters, and the usual commentariat have decried a purportedly authoritarian “censorship” of Donald Trump. Indeed, most of the discussion since then has focused on whether Twitter and other social media platforms acted appropriately.

That has, as has happened so many times in the last four years, distracted from Trump’s own refusal to act.

Here’s Twitter’s description of why it found that Trump had violated Twitter’s Glorification of Violence prohibition.

Overview

On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump tweeted:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Shortly thereafter, the President tweeted:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks. After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.

Assessment

We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

This determination is based on a number of factors, including:

  • President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.
  • The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.
  • The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.
  • The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.
  • Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.

As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.

Effectively, Twitter is saying that these Tweets have been exploited by the terrorists supporting Trump as support for further violence. It specifically described plans, being made both on and off Twitter, for a follow-on attack no January 17 (apparently because Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet).

Twitter is not actually arguing that Trump intended to incite violence. Rather, they’re saying that his Tweets are being interpreted as encouragement of more violence that is already being actively planned, regardless of what Trump actually meant by it.

Now, maybe Trump didn’t intend that to be the effect, though Twitter makes a fair point that both the reference to a “GIANT VOICE” in the future — one that may depend on further terrorism — and the formal announcement that the inauguration could be targeted without endangering Trump himself might be seen as inviting more violence.

But if he didn’t mean to do so, the proper response of any marginally responsible adult would be to say, “Golly, I didn’t realize how my own words were being used in ways I didn’t intend. Let me take the next few weeks off to cool off, or better yet, let me find other ways to correct any misinterpretation that I supported violence.” The appropriate response for the Commander in Chief would be to say, “Wow, that was a totally unprecedented attack on our Capitol the other day, I’m deploying all the resources of the Federal government to ensure these planned follow-up attacks will not take place.”

Have you noticed that Trump hasn’t actually said he has ordered the government to prevent further violence?

That’s all the more alarming, given that US law enforcement agencies increasingly share intelligence with the social media platforms, which suggests that Twitter’s reference to “a number of factors” doesn’t rule out specific intelligence about follow-on plans that aren’t visible on social media.

Twitter said, tucked away there in a fifth bullet, that one of the reasons they (and presumably Facebook and Apple and Google and everyone else) acted is because there are specific plans for future terrorist attacks.

And instead of talking about the fact that the man who remains President is doing nothing to prevent those follow-on attacks, we’re talking about what a victim he is.

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160 replies
  1. klynn says:

    Speaking of 17th letter instigator, why haven’t intelligence agencies tracked down this person/entity and publicly identified them to date? Shouldn’t it be shut down?.

    • Amers says:

      If intelligence agencies have been standing down, allowing for said group to show they actually are a danger, and collecting more intelligence and evidence, wouldnt that give them an advantage to finally tie the financing of disinformation propagation to the president?

  2. Alan Charbonneau says:

    There are gonna be lots of people tracked down methinks. Even those who were “careful” are being identified, like the zip-tie guys (one of whom is a retired Lt. Colonel, the other it looks like is a police officer in Tennessee)

    Seen on Twitter: “At what point does Parler just rename their app Evidence?”

  3. Joseph Andrews says:

    …from the piece:

    “given that US law enforcement agencies increasingly share intelligence with the social media platforms, which suggests that Twitter’s reference to “a number of factors” doesn’t rule out specific intelligence about follow-on plans that aren’t visible on social media.”

    Wow. Just wow. I guess my bias is that, say, the FBI…is not in the habit of sharing much of anything with anybody outside of law enforcement. Information flows in both directions between the FBI and Facebook, for example?

    …seems like this topic is worth a deep dive.

    • JohnJ says:

      Don’t all those apps have private messaging or members only groups that the media companies can read, but is not publicly visible on social media? Could they be reading that stuff, but don’t want to admit it out loud?

      I virtually never use social media besides reading blogs and news sites, so that may be an ignorant idea.

    • Stacey says:

      To my mind the chances that Twitter deduced ON IT’S OWN that those two tweets by Trump constituted the clear and present danger that they say they believe it does, is virtually zero. The FBI had to have presented an intelligence analysis product to them that convinced them of that. There’s no way those two tweets get a normal non-intelligence risk analyzer to that place! I see the reasoning once it’s pointed out very clearly, but I can’t see Twitter coming up with that on their own. I’m not criticizing that AT ALL, by the way, I’m just stating that I think Christopher Wray is more active behind the scenes than he’d like advertised for the next 11 days, is all.

  4. Peterr says:

    Josh Hawley is following in Trump’s footsteps. From the KC Star:

    President-elect Joe Biden on Friday said Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are part of the “big lie” about election fraud and invoked Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, but stopped short of calling on the two senators to resign.

    Hawley, a Missouri Republican, faces a wave of condemnation for supporting a bid to block certification of Biden’s victory in two states even after a violent mob breached the U.S. Capitol. Top Senate Democrats have demanded his resignation and previously-supportive politicians have denounced him.

    The junior senator quickly seized on Biden’s remarks in an effort to turn the tables, saying the incoming president had called him and Cruz Nazis.

    In a related story, Rockhurst High School (a Jesuit-run school in KC) is getting phone calls . . .

    Rockhurst High School, the Kansas City all-boys Catholic school from which Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley graduated in 1998, has received calls from across the country requesting that it “condemn” the alumnus in the wake of the mob attack Wednesday on the U.S. Capitol.

    In a letter to “The Rockhurst Community” Thursday, school president David J. Laughlin emphasized that the Jesuit school does “not endorse political candidates nor parties.” He did not condemn Hawley directly, but did condemn the siege at the Capitol and called on elected officials, including Hawley, to an “examination of conscience.”

    I can’t find the whole letter, but KMBC reports it includes this line:

    “I call upon all of our elected officials, including our graduate, Sen. Josh Hawley, to conduct their own examination of conscience on this matter. If wrong occurs, one ought to seek atonement and reconciliation,” Rockhurst High School President David Laughlin said.

    When your old high school calls you to the principal’s office 22 years after you graduate, that’s not a good sign.

    • dude says:

      When your principal then says. “Now I think you should go home and think about it”…that is not a good sign either.

    • Drew says:

      The “examination of conscience” or “examen” is a very specific thing in Jesuit (Ignatian) spirituality, with specific steps. It is a daily thing for all Jesuits, but it is also something that they have been teaching to their high school students for their own development, at least since Vatican 2.

      It’s serious business for them and reminding their own graduate of his obligations publicly is pretty stiff–though of course, the principal isn’t directly committing to knowing the outcome of someone else’s examination of conscience.

  5. phred says:

    It is evident that the leadership of the Capitol Police were supporters of the protest by not taking the usual steps to prepare for any protest, much less a protest by Trumplicans. Having participated in various protests over the years it was incomprehensible to me that such a small number of people could overtake the security of the Capitol. The deliberately slow response of federal law enforcement also smacks of collusion. Had foreign commandos parachuted in and surrounded the Capitol it is unfathomable that the response would have been so lackadaisical.

    In light of these events it is imperative that in whatever criminal justice reform comes down the pike, one reform must be that community review boards are able to fire abusive police officers and that individuals fired for abusive behavior are banned from policing anywhere.

    Our country could easily have been a very different place on Thursday had the coup succeeded, all because of simmering police resentment over being called out for coddling abusive officers in their midst.

    It is shocking to me that the House isn’t in session right now holding hearings with the leadership of every relevant law enforcement agency responsible for protecting the Capitol. The inauguration is in less than 2 weeks and I don’t think anyone can be confident that law enforcement in D.C. intends to ensure a secure transfer of power.

    • P J Evans says:

      I read that the Capitol Police asked for authorization for equipment, and were denied – a couple of days beforehand. Ask who denied it to them. And who wouldn’t allow the Guard to be used.

      • silcominc says:

        I put my money on the trump toadies at Pentagon. They may not be as stupid as they seem…at least when it comes to destroying our country.

      • phred says:

        While more information will be coming out and what is reported by the Washington Post may change, here are key points on the police response as of yesterday (see, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-police/2021/01/07/fa3114b8-5114-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html):

        “Capitol Police had not asked other law enforcement agencies for help until their building was surrounded by a mob seeking to overturn the election results.”

        “While District police, major federal law enforcement agencies and neighboring police departments have agreements to assist each other in cases of emergencies, the Capitol Police did not make early requests for mutual aid with the D.C. National Guard or D.C. police, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe security preparations.”

        “Gus Papathanasiou, head of the Capitol Police union, […] said the union wanted Sund and his entire command staff to resign. “This lack of planning led to the greatest breach of the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812,” when British forces burned the Capitol, Papathanasiou said.”

        • Raven Eye says:

          In a WaPo article about Officer Disknick:

          ‘ Another officer, who has been on the force 19 years, described members as “angry and frustrated,” adding, “Things have to change. We have a job to do and we can’t do it. And the change has to come from the chief on down.” ‘

      • BobCon says:

        The Capitol Police have about 80% as many officers as the city of San Antonio, who cover a city of 1.5 million and over 400 square miles.

        They have a higher percentage of resources devoted to mob control than most police forces. This was a failure of planning first of all.

        They were clearly hurt by the White House and federal leadership breaking standing agreements to provide federal police support. But something also broke down in the coordination between the DC police and the US Capitol PD, which doesn’t rely on federal approval.The role of the political leadership on the Hill and DC needs to be investigated too — the degree to which it was incompetence, cultural, and political has to be sorted out.

      • cavenewt says:

        According to this AP article, several different agencies had reached out to the Capitol Police days ahead of the scheduled demonstration to offer help, and were turned down. Supposedly the Capitol Police assumed it was just going to be a “First Amendment demonstration”. Even so they should’ve done contingency planning, as pointed out by law enforcement professionals all over the world.

        I’m not one to assume conspiracies, but this certainly bears looking into.

        https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380

    • ItIsWhatItAmericanazis says:

      Exactly. 100%. It’s the same principle that underlined completing Wednesday’s late night return to business. I think the political calculus on not doing this is that it will provide dt a mic to claim victimhood and alarm people that law enforcement participated Wednesday. Regardless Congress should b doing it’s job to ensure the 20th is safe. D’s only primary agenda in reconvening Congress should b to audit security and simply make speech after speech demanding Trump, Cruz, Hawley, Pence(!?) resign. As a caucus they can put impeachment on the back burner, yet still yield it. ***** The only danger I see in auditing law enforcement now is to make it apparent how planned this coup was. Right now the D’s and McConnell are on the same page trying to run down the clock. American Nazis don’t deserve that 12 day breathing room. Trump hasn’t taken his narcissistic rage fully public. This isn’t over, these 12 days are extremely dangerous and there is little that I find reassuring about Congress not being on the clock after being violently attacked and occupied.

    • Rugger9 says:

      DJT refuses to lower the flag to half staff for the slain officer even though he died in the line of duty and today is Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. There is no bottom for his soul, headed to Judecca if Dante’s right.

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        Yesterday a second Capitol Police officer, also present at Wednesday’s terror attack, died by suicide. The force is fractured, frustrated, and I’m sure feeling sick (most of them) at being blamed for what happened. Blue Lives Matter? It was never anything more than a slogan; their lives mean nothing when they make easy scapegoats. Alt-right media has made Ashli Babitt a martyr, ginning up an excessive-force investigation into her shooting. Which would put Trump on witness lists for both plaintiff and defense: he encouraged true excessive force by cops repeatedly, then gave orders to a violent mob that would inevitably meet a law enforcement response. Which side is he on? As always, only his own.

  6. harpie says:

    Via Kate Brannen:

    https://twitter.com/navybook/status/1347908922292768771
    9:11 AM · Jan 9, 2021

    Fascinatingly, the Defense Department is referring to Wednesday’s pro-Trump riot as “the January 6, 2021 1st Amendment Protests.” [LINK] [screenshot]

    To be precise, and as others have pointed out, this is a memo issued by the office of the acting Defense Secretary, the fifth person appointed by President Trump to lead the Department of Defense.

    • noromo says:

      Reading the whole memo (https://t.co/RFeeR4OGK6?amp=1):
      — At 1:05pm, the Acting Sec’y of Defense (A/SD) gets reports that the demonstrators are moving on the Capitol.
      — At 1:26pm, the US Cap’l Police (USCP) order the evacuation of the capitol.
      — The mayor calls the Sec’y of the Army at 1:34pm asking for add’l resources. The chief of the USCP calls the Commanding Gen. of the DC Nat’l Guard at 1:49 asking for “immediate assistance.”
      These requests percolate up the chain of command until finally, at 3pm, the A/SD, “determines all available forces of the DCNG are required to reinforce MPD and USCP positions to support efforts to reestablish security of the Capitol complex.”

      I don’t know, but that looks to me like they slow-walked the mayor’s and chief’s requests for help.

    • e.a.f. says:

      A First Amendment issue. Hell 5 people are dead. They had the right to live their lives. Many of those caught inside the building, who had to be rushed out, will most likely be spending some time with their shrinks dealing with PTSD. They have the right to live their lives without having to suffer through things like PTSD.

      Now as I understand it, the First Amendment is about Freedom of Speech. What I saw on t.v. was not speech but the actions of terrorists and would be murderers.

      There is speech and then there is hate speech. A t-shirt which says “6M was not enough” is hate speech and in most countries that is against the law. Its telling some Americans they ought to be dead and they could be murdered. I know there is a phrase in the American Constition about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A lot of Americans were denied that 6 Jan.

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        I believe that carrying the Confederate flag in this context should also be considered hate speech. I doubt my White fellow/sister posters felt it this way, but to some of us the scene triggered the kind of panic, passed down by generations, that starts in your guts when the lynch mob gets its act together.

        • Spencer Dawkins says:

          Honest question. If you’re fighting under that flag, when does that become enough of a “war” for charges of treason during wartime to kick in?

          I don’t have a opinion, but I’ve been scolding people who say “treason” for years, because seditious acts weren’t committed during wartime. If I should change my story, I’d like to know that.

  7. pseudonymous in nc says:

    “He doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders. He speaks in code. I understand his code.”

    Michael Cohen gave us the decryption key, but a lot more people understand his code.

    The rally was hyped as the start of one of the biggest days in US history. It would be wild. It would change things forever. And yet nobody in big media asked out loud what that meant — what gathering tens of thousands of magas in DC was supposed to accomplish. Perhaps they knew but they didn’t want to say it for risk of it coming true. “Information to follow!”

    And yet while he was rambling at the Ellipse, the hardcore base was disappointed: they wanted some kind of revelatory evidence and this was just the same rally stuff. But then he told them what to do. And once they were in the building, he told them what to do next while he was watching them on TV.

    It was a mob hit on Mike Pence, using an actual mob.

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      I agree with you completely. Why else would they need an array of monitors with which to watch the sacking of the Capitol from in the tent after Trump spoke?

      There is no way Pence will participate in the 25th Amendment, he is afraid for his life after seeing the mob chanting for him. They built a gallows from which to hang him.

      How was that gallows built so close to the building and no member of the police thought it was dangerous or represented something bad was planned ?

      • Kim Hanson says:

        It would be fairly standard to have monitors in a VIP / greenroom area which is what that video appears to be.

        • cavenewt says:

          I saw a video shot by Don Jr. of the Trumps partying in a tent while they watched the rally. This was before the crowd went to the Capitol, so the party atmosphere is sort of excusable. I’d sure like to see another one later showing how they reacted after the rioting started.

          • skua says:

            A comment here on Emptywheel describes a (Twitter?) video perhaps from later with Don Jnr giving a countdown. seach terms: Welsh countdown

        • dimmsdale says:

          Anyone who’s ever worked in film/video knows what Video Village is. It’s the tent with the monitors showing the video feed from the cameras on set. IT’S WHERE THE DIRECTOR SITS.

      • Raven Eye says:

        I can’t speak to other departments, but in the Pentagon there literally thousands of TV monitors running 24/7. An office with a 25-person cube farm might have two or three of them constantly streaming on mute — plus a big screen in a conference room for computers or TV. The program plan allows selection of individual channels along with several panels of four channels.

        The TVs are just part of the landscape.

        • skua says:

          Off topic: These TVs will bias Pentagon staff towards treating what TV producers decide is financially productive as more important. Perhaps not how a nation’s priorities are adequately determined.

          • Raven Eye says:

            That’s not totally off int0 the weeds. It does speak to the decision making under-pinnings that operationalize some of Trump’s observational deficiencies and behavioral pathologies.

            I ran into too many folks that lacked the educational and/or experiential foundations to understand that the “real” world is not proportionally represented by what is streaming on cable.

        • FL Resister says:

          I was watching it on the live feed from the NY Times and WAPO. I noted that at the speechifying there were a slew of them wearing rather bulky backpacks and I wondered what they had inside.
          Then, once they started breaking into the Capitol building, I wondered why no one could stop them. Finally once I saw the Capitol police were outnumbered I wondered what was taking so long for backup to arrive and render aid. It was so unsettling I was literally shaking.

  8. silcominc says:

    I think one of the biggest takeaways will be the total failure of the mainstream media to acknowledge and cover the growing menace that these right wing hate groups posed. I only hope law enforcement is on top of it but I am not so sure.

    • BobCon says:

      Their restrained, both-sides coverage of the state capitol mobs last year was a sign to the GOP that they could get away with collaboration.

      The top management is going to be culling their archives for specific articles here and there that took things more seriously to claim that they were right and critics today are wrong.

      But occasional in depth reports don’t excuse their deep bias in favor of softening coverage for the benefit of mobs and their GOP enablers.

      • Wajim says:

        I humbly suggest the modifier missing in your phrasing is “white,” as in “white mobs,” and “white GOP members.” This was a white supremacy action, and as far as I can see, not much doubt about it

        • BobCon says:

          Ted Cruz is Cuban and the mob’s main targets were Pelosi, Schumer and Pence, all whites. This doesn’t break down neatly along racial lines, and it makes more sense to think of how this is an authoritarian movement that stokes racial hatred for its own ends.

          Having said that, I absolutely understand that sick racial hatred is a key piece of it, but I think it makes more sense to talk about it when discussing causes rather than topline descriptors of these attacks.

          • P J Evans says:

            for all intents and purposes, Cruz is white, and the people who showed up were about 99.8% white. (Think what they’d have done to black and female Dems, if they’d gotten hold of them.)

            • skua says:

              The videos I saw had a far higher proportion of other-than-white rioters. They were in no visible way treated differently by the rest of the mob.

            • BobCon says:

              I disagree about Cruz, although I don’t think that changes the fact that he is a racist freakshow. You can add people like David Clarke and Allen West to the list of minorities who are onboard.

              It’s not that they are somehow not racists too, just because they are Black, or that their existence in the movement somehow absolves it of its racist character. But I think it’s worth thinking of the role that racism plays in the movement the same way that the anti-abortion movement works. They organize around abortion, but the reality is that they care more about power than abortion. Overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn’t make a difference to them, because it’s more about power than anything else.

              Abortion is the tool, not the end.

              Which is not to say that the racist character of the movement should be minimized, or written off, but I think it’s an incomplete explanation of what is fundamentally an authoritarian and often fascist movement first.

          • J R in WV says:

            Calling Senator Cruz “Ted” is misleading.

            His name is Rafael Eduardo Cruz, and that’s how he should be referred to. He is not named Ted. I’m sure his parents intended to call him Rafael.

            • earthworm says:

              the recent chin-feathers sprouted on Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz:
              seems like ‘Taliban Ted’ would also fit.

          • Mary R. says:

            This assault was clearly orchestrated and led primarily by the white supremacist faction of the GOP, but as Trinculo said in The Tempest, taking shelter under the monstrous Caliban’s cloak, “misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

          • heddalee says:

            Speculating: I wonder if Trumpistas see Democrats like Pelosi as ‘race traitors’ and hence no longer worthy of whiteness. Schumer, of course, is largely disqualified from whiteness, a priori. For their needs, Trumpistas can twist anyone into an enemy whose personal attributes are not predominant.

      • e.a..f says:

        In my opinion its all about money, market share, how much they can charge for commercials and advertising. When the MSM lets things slide and then there is a big blow up, they get way more viewers and hence make more money and in the end its usually all about money and power.

        • bmaz says:

          So, it is all about money, and nothing to do with voter excitement and registration? Seriously??

          Did you participate in the Stacey Abrams project? No? Did you work here in AZ in the Adios Arpaio effort starting nearly a decade ago that was the true progenitor to the election return changes in AZ this year? No?

          Because those things, as much as the all evil “money” made the difference. And, by the way, it all takes money.

          Thank you kindly for telling us what we are all about…..From a comfy chair in Canada.

          • blueedredcounty says:

            bmaz, he was talking about for-profit media corporations being all about money. He is not wrong. It is frequently discussed on this site, and many others. Just look at the posts and discussions about Fox News and Sinclair-owned-and-controlled media markets. Why did you turn this into an attack on him like he was criticizing our voting, particularly in this election? There is nothing in his response that justifies your attack on him, especially for being Canadian. You owe him and all the readers an apology.

            • bmaz says:

              Because it is garbage if you have read the actual jurisprudence as opposed to simply blurting out what you want. From Canada, and not even the US. US law, and feelings, especially foreign ones, are often different it turns out.

            • e.a.f. says:

              thank you blueedred country, that is what I was writing about, the money media makes off of all of this, not voting.
              I understand what bmaz was saying and money is important in politics. In Canada parliament and provincial legislatures passed laws so that money isn’t such a big deal. these legislative bodies passed laws which placed limits on what can be spent on a campaign and when. These laws took “big money” out of the political game. the really fun part of it is, you can go to jail if you break these laws as one former cabinet minister found out.

              bmaz, for many Canadians we are not sitting in a “comfy chair”. We’re just as scared as American are about what happened 6 Jan. and what could still happen.
              1. If things really go off the rails in the U.S.A. we know it will spill over into our country. it frequently happens once there is an internal war in a country. And that doesn’t even start to cover things like the economy.
              2. Canada would have a real refugee problem in the middle of a COVID crisis AND we know we would be morally bound to take in refugees in the middle of an American crisis/war.
              3. Some of us have watched politics in the U.S.A. our whole lives and we have seen the struggle for voting rights. During the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s there were Canadians who went to the South to work with voting rights organizations.
              4. Ms. Abrams is an amazing individual and a real hero to many in this country.
              5. Canada has had its own struggle for voting rights because at one time you could not vote in Canada if you were Chinese or Indigenous. You could not be a doctor or lawyer either. It was not until the 1980s when the first South Asian person was elected to a provincial legislature in Canada. The man elected was Moe Sihota, here in B.C. and ran for the N.D.P. It was a very big deal for some of us when he was elected. It was even a bigger deal for elderly men who had come here a long time prior to that. part of our racism was men who came from India or China could not bring their wives or children with them. People from China paid a “head tax”. A friend of mines, Father had to pay it.
              Racism is alive and well in Canada. Just check with the Indigenous Peoples in this country.
              6. Racists in the U.S.A. will embolden racists in Canada or as the saying here goes: when the U.S.A. sneezes Canada catches the cold.

        • BobCon says:

          I see the ratings/clicks argument all the time, and to the extent the bottom line is a factor, I think it’s backwards.

          The profit motive is cost driven, not revenue based. News ratings and readership are on a long, long downward slide, and yet management does nothing significant to change formats or find new talent — Wolf Blitzer confusedly blinking at a monitor while he stumbles through an interview has been a staple for CNN for decades.

          They shrink staffs, hire dopes straight out of J school and never bother to make them learn anything, and rely in sources to provide them with all of their background.

          But I also think there is more than just balance sheets at work. It is a deeply insular culture that resents curiousity and creativity, but also scorns real analysis. I think a good comparison is baseball managers from the pre-Moneyball days, or for that matter most NFL owners today.

          It’s what you tend to get from highly concentrated busineses without a lot of competition and core audiences who stick around out of habit.

  9. madwand says:

    There are enough interviews now and enough online posting that we can accurately say we need to take them seriously. Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny over at NBC who study these things online indicated you could see it coming 2 weeks before. They are also saying that organizations such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Qanon, are moving from their dark web communication channels to more traditional lines of communications such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc and are attempting to recruit new members sympathetic to their cause. In other words their intentions are clear and you can literally know the moment when they say “lets go” Chatter increases as an you get closer to an event so it should be easy to see if the 17th will bring the crowd. Of course the smart guys are already smuggling weapons and explosives into the city if their intention is more than hyperbole which is why authorities should be searching vehicles now. My guess is they probably aren’t.

    I happen to think they got further than they thought they would on Wednesday, many had been told there was a plan and it would be revealed but never was. If their intention was to seize the capital they would have brought in weapons and hardened up the place, they did not.

    Rachel Maddow gave three avenues for Trump last night

    1. Resign and be pardoned by Pence
    2. The twenty fifth amendment which is currently resisted by Pence and which we have several cabinet resignations, so it looks very problematic.
    3. Impeachment and removal, the House could muster the votes, but the Senate is problematic and Mitch McConnell has indicated the first he would bring it up is the 19th, so not very promising.

    So avenues for removal overall are slim before the 20th and authorities would be derelict not to prepare for a further assault this time with weapons. They need to harden up the Capital complex, restrict movement, close venues, mobilize the Guard, establish perimeters and defenses at choke points, bring in tanks and automatic weapons and issue ammunition, the tanks for intimidation the ammunition for use, but the tanks should have flechette rounds. In addition patrol units, State Police etc should be out right now pulling over suspected vehicles, and if finding weapons or explosive paraphernalia seize and jail the individuals involved. Authorities should continue to arrest those involved on Wednesday and go after the leaders. I would not have released the Proud Boys leader to live another day. You can bet he is out there assessing the situation and odds. The best defense is where you force the opposing force to give up the attack before hostilities begin.

    There will be many who will take issue with this post and that is fine, however most were not in Saigon on January 30, 1968.

    • tbob says:

      Madwand, I agree totally. For what it’s worth, I was in Chu Lai, not Saigon, on that date. I hadn’t touched a long gun after RVN until Trump was elected. I live in a rabidly red state infested with Trump-humping maniacs (the dillweed hanging from the balcony, for example) who will refine their techniques from the Capitol misadventure and prove much more effective next time out. I hate to have to say it but a long line of cops packing sidearms won’t stop them. Just like 911, this has changed our country forever.

      • madwand says:

        Hey man, glad to see you’re still communicating and I hope you’re upright and doing well. I should have said also Saigon environs and provinces because it was a country wide attack wasn’t it and US commanders and government had been lulled into thinking Khe Sanh was the strategic battle, like Dien Bien Phu, only it wasn’t and TET 68 became a moral strategic victory for the North Vietnamese eventually driving the US out of the war and wasting plenty of Vietcong in the process.

        Its easy to see these things in perspective many years later but at the time it was very fluid and unclear as now. We’ve had a spate of attacks not just at the US capital but at state capitals also. This WAPO article is a good place to start for believing these people are serious.

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/09/trump-twitter-protests/

        I’m hoping its not on a paywall and they are letting these article through.

      • greengiant says:

        Re a hardened perimeter. The new fence type put up Friday at the Capitol was bridged in minutes in Portland. DHS contractors ended up having concrete road barriers in front and on top of the “feet” of the fence. They welded all joints and bolts. DHS still had to come out and actively defend the fence from destruction.
        I have not heard of a single person who believed in election fraud having changed their mind.
        The civil war seems to still be on for some. Would not be surprised at how many campaign dollars were spent bringing in people from across the country.
        Some laugh when they talk about how many people will die in the civil war. DHS were handing out water bottles to the Proud boys in Portland. I can hope the crazies are only 1 in a thousand or less. There are at least 145 in the House though.

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      I agree with you completely. Trump was directing that attack on Wednesday as evidenced by his comments and by the mis-dialed phone calls to Rudy and Tuberville. Why else would they need an array of monitors with which to watch the sacking of the Capitol from within the tent after Trump spoke Wednesday?

      There is no way Pence will participate in the 25th Amendment, he is afraid for his life after seeing the mob chanting for him, however complicit he may be in his sycophancy. They built a gallows from which to hang him. How was that gallows built so close to the building and no member of the police thought it was dangerous or represented something bad was planned ?

      I want to know who is ‘advising’ Trump ? I have been alarmed since he fired Mark Esper as Secty, of Defense and replaced him with the rather obscure Christopher Miller. Who suggested Miller to him ?

      I am not assured by General Milley’s protestation that he will not allow the military to be drug into political situations. This from a man who claims he was duped into showing up in Lafayette Square in fatigues? If he is that incredulous, he has no business being the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

      Why did Chad Wolf meet with the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Qatari Prime Minister, and the Minister of Interior, Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani on Friday ? That came after meeting with Bahraini Minister of Interior Lt. General Sheikh Rashed bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa on the day of the attack.

      We are only seeing pieces of what is going on, I fear that we are not worrying about the right things.

      • madwand says:

        Yep and they were all smiling and laughing looking at those monitors weren’t they? My assessment is that there was a significant internal battle going on inside the Pentagon between those who wanted to stop it and those who wanted to see it go on. It appears the latter group won as today they are calling this little insurrection a 1st amendment protest.

        As far as Miller is concerned, the reporting was that he did his job well and he passed over other senior to him, so I’m thinking it was political and he supports Trump. Named at the same time was Kash Patel, Ezra Cohen Watney, and a one or two star named Tata all who are Fox contributors. At any rate it looks like they beat down those under them as orders for the Guard to move in after an hour and half delay came from the Army Secretary who was not in the chain of command which means there are some in the Pentagon willing to oppose this crap.

        I don’t know where Milley stands on this, but Milley is not in the chain of command, so he may have bypassed commanders and gone to the Army Secretary, speculation of course.

        Michael Cohen on MSNBC with his “I told you so” and saying over and over,
        “Donald Trump does not care about anyone except himself.”

    • Chris.EL says:

      Ah, 1968 (+1963) all over again … said it before, once was enough … every now and then I think about the assassinations that were done, and the audacity of an individual to decide that another human’s philosophy, leadership, *existence* was no longer acceptable!

      You know what? It didn’t work, did it? Those ideas and philosophies are still here; stronger than ever!!
      ~~~~~~~~
      Has anyone found out HOW pallets of bricks got put in places? Did Jared order them? And a gallows was built??? Holy cow!
      ~~~~~~~~
      Worrying about the minor child in the White House again.

      A very dangerous time.
      ~~~~~~~~
      dear popehat is struggling … I say, “Chuck it”; life’s too short — thou must enjoy it — in moderation, of course!
      but seriously, doesn’t this sound like a great title for a country song?
      …”Dry January was the worst idea I’ve ever had” …

      Dry January.
      … Blue Monday …

      • P J Evans says:

        Apparently, in some cities, construction companies feel they can leave pallets of bricks and cinderblocks on the sidewalk. (I’m in a state where construction sites get fenced.)

        • BobCon says:

          The Capitol Hill neighborhood has tons of brick sidewalks along all of the rowhouse and townhouses, and I am pretty sure the Olmstead-designed grounds of the Capitol do too. It’s common to have a bunch of bricks sitting near areas that are being repaired.

          There were a lot of garbage rumors about Antifa brick and rock dumps during the BLM protests that turned out to be related to nearby construction or demolition.

          • P J Evans says:

            I remember reading about those. It’s still something I don’t get – leaving them out overnight on sidewalks.
            (I spent four years in and around a city in west Texas that still has a lot of brick paving. Holds up well in their weather, but hard to repair to the quality of the original.)

      • Judy says:

        Don’t shoot the ignorant suburban bumpkin but I think the scaffolding, which they turned into a gallows, is in preparation for the inauguration.
        Also, I find it very hard to believe the capital police had no idea of the plans forming to march on the capital. Cybersecurity journalists for the NYTimes (podcast yesterday) said they could see plans being made on social media platforms for weeks.
        I don’t think they should have the inauguration on the capital steps no matter how good security is.
        Thanks for the clarification about the 17th. I never would have thought of Q.

  10. Vinnie Gambone says:

    “If wrong occurs….” Rockhurst High School President David Laughlin said. If ? If ? If ? I think I will be calling Rockhurst and asking to speak Lauglin. Everyone should, IF he is examining his conscious for such a weak statement .

    • Peterr says:

      I don’t think he’s questioning that wrong occurred here, but making a general religious statement that whenever wrong occurs, the people involved need to examine their conscience. He’s a Jesuit, using very precise religious language to speak to alums that speak the same language.

      • Vinnie Gambone says:

        Well then fuck the Jesuits and their general religious statement, and the “speaking of very precise religious language to speak to alums that speak the same language.” If they can’t condemn Hawley’s actions and exhortations that led to 6 deaths then fuck them. Might as well say nothing like Pope Pious who shamefully refused to condemn the Nazi murders of Jews for “reasons of state.”

        • Peterr says:

          That’s not it at all.

          He’s saying “we Jesuits are clear that when wrong occurs, people involved need to examine themselves to see what their own role was, and if necessary, take steps that lead to righting the wrong. This is one such case, and every member of Congress, including our own alum Josh Hawley, needs to do exactly that.”

          He’s not pussyfooting about what happened at all. He’s speaking in strong religious terms, using the somewhat in-house Roman Catholic language that all Rockhurst grads understand very well. (If they don’t understand it, they don’t graduate.)

          • paulpfixion says:

            This is a good example of how privilege and entitlement reinforce and sustain themselves. Rockhurst has a reputation as the sort of place that produces a distinctly blind sort of privilege, which is a way of sugarcoating what might be otherwise called a particularly american catholic sort of asshole. The jargon that institutions use to communicate resonates within the community, and the upstanding/square (so to speak) members of that community feel that the offending party has been duly criticized for breaking the rules of polite society engagement. The offending party, here, Hawley, doesn’t give a shit what the priests or the churchmoms and dads think. Meanwhile, the in-group’s message is nearly completely lost on the majority of people in the out-group. If Rockhurst or Georgetown Prep, etc really wanted to sanction a behavior of a member of their respective community they would speak in a language common to the greatest group of people, not just their in-group. My point is that criticism of Catholic prep schools and other institutions that produce privileged, entitled, assholes, who believe that they deserve to rule and the sheep deserve to serve is not only founded, but critical to changing the current dynamic and trajectory in the US. Unfortunately that is nearly impossible.

  11. Ingalls says:

    Perhaps someone can clarify. A permit to protest/parade in the streets of the District comes through the Metropolitan Police Dept (Contee). Isn’t this Dept the front line for crowd control? Wouldn’t they be the ones providing those buses and handcuffs? Mayor Bowser thought it wise to call up National Guard backup before the events. Would not the Metropolitan police be ready with their best control plans? Considering this, no one had permits to enter the Capitol grounds/bldgs. From this perspective it feels like the law enforcement failure occurred at the city level. But news reports seem to point their finger mostly at the Capitol police.

    • Peterr says:

      Who issues a permit depends where you are protesting. In this case, the protest began at the Elipse – federal property, probably under the jurisdiction of the US Park Police. They moved across Constitution Avenue to the National Mall, again under the jurisdiction of the US Park Police. Once they got to the Capitol, jurisdiction changes to the Capitol Police, but I don’t know exactly where that switch happens.

      The DC Metro Police *never* had jurisdiction over any of these places. Once folks left the Capitol, if they were breaking the curfew, that’s when the Metro Police could act on their own without asking permission or getting invited to support the actions of federal law enforcement agencies.

      • Ingalls says:

        Ok! I guess it’s complicated! It seems then that the protest groups should have had to apply for permits to the US Park Police? Not the first time Park Police had to maintain the peace for large groups….Remember the part where DJT exhorted the protestors to march down Pennsylvania Avenue? There’s where I imagined it was a DC police event. Maybe the “guidance” from DJT was outside the scope of the original planned route and controls dependent on that route, resulting in the following chaos. (Charge DJT!) Sigh.

        • pseudonymous in nc says:

          US Park Police issued a revised permit that greatly increased the number of people allowed at the rally.

          Were Park Police involved in any capacity in and around the Capital? I haven’t read any indication they were, even as backup. They were (notoriously) deployed for the BLM tear-gassing.

          • P J Evans says:

            The Park Police around DC are very hard-nosed. (Remember, they shot and killed a guy, and AFAIK still haven’t done anything to prevent it happening again.)

      • BobCon says:

        It’s not never — if the DC police see something happening on the National Mall (US Park Police) or US Capitol grounds, they have the authority to act. Likewise, Secret Service will jump across Pennsylvania avenue to deal with clearly non-White House crime from time to time.

        What they can’t do is park themselves in another jurisdiction and wait for something to happen or move into buildings without permission.

    • Vinnie Gambone says:

      “Mayor Bowser thought it wise to call up National Guard backup before the events.” Whoever declined that request is your culprit.
      I see huge disconnect here for the preparations for the inauguration and the Hillbilly insurrection. They should have known just by the numbers of hillbillys on the streets night before they were going to need help next day. Interview the drivers of the charter buses. Interview and trace back who paid for the charter buses.
      https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/02/thousands-of-national-guard-troops-prepare-support-bidens-inauguration.html

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        Please stop calling these “hillbilly” riots. Trump voters on average, and this group in particular, have higher incomes than those who voted for Clinton or Biden. I spent part of my childhood in the Appalachian foothills. True “hillbilly” families suffer from deprivation these people can’t imagine, which is why I understood even as a kid the ease with which cynical politicians could stir their fear and resentment of Blacks who had even less than they did. These contemporary MAGA terrorists flying into DC on private jets have nothing in common with hill people but skin color.

        • P J Evans says:

          Lawyers, accountants, state legislators (!), a retired Lt Col – people who can afford houses, $50K wheels, cross-country trips. Probably a lot of them have annual incomes over $150K. They’re well-off, the typical Trmp voter.

          • BobCon says:

            Trump won the majority of voters with incomes over $100,000.

            Biden won the majority of voters with incomes under $100,000.

            Outfits like the NY Times political desk like to boil it all down to an imaginary vision of America because they are exceedingly clueless about the composition of American society.

      • BobCon says:

        Beware of narratives that try to focus on one key problem to the exclusion of others. Think of September 11, and how there were a lot of contributing factors, despite people wanting to say it was just one thing or another.

        This isn’t as big of a conundrum as 9/11, but it’s still complicated, and there are roles of the police and political leadership on Capitol Hill and DC that need to be examined.

      • Montana Voter says:

        Please do not refer to the insurrectionists as ‘hillbillys”. The list of them being identified and arrested includes state legislators, lawyers, policemen, restaurant owners, etc. and they are from California, Arizona, Washington, Pennsylvania Idaho and many others states Sadly, this includes Montana. This is very extensive. We need to know who is funding these trips, airfare, hotels, food, preprinted signs etc, etc. The rule from Watergate still applies. Follow the money. I have one doubt it will lead in two directions: Russia, possibly through the NRA as with campaign funds and the Koch Brothers funded entities such as ALEC etc.
        This is a well- planned and funded operation. It is astroturf not “grassroots” we can’t let the media guide the investigation.

        • bmaz says:

          Damn, I completely agree with Montana Voter. So be it, he/she is quite correct here. As is PJ previously.

          • P J Evans says:

            My father was from OK. His father and grandfather were from northeastern KY, between the bluegrass and what’s now Appalachia. They might not have been dirt poor, but they definitely weren’t hillbillies.

            • bmaz says:

              Part of mine from Western KY, and they were not hillbillies either. Humps can come from anywhere, but are not necessarily indigenous to any one region. Hey, I live in AZ, so….

              • P J Evans says:

                In that county, the first place that offered classes in Excel was the ag extension. Farmers are into tech. (They got mobile phones early, too.)

          • e.a.f. says:

            Montana Voter, I agree with you. Follow the money. You can get on an airplane for free. Some one had to pay for those plane tickets. Once they identify some of these out of staters, they might want to have a look at their bank records. Just watching all the people verbally assaulting Mitt Romney while they were travelling is telling.

            • Montana Voter says:

              Thanks. Your comments are accurate. I know I can’t walk in and pay cash for airfare and I know my credit card company knows more about me than I would care to admit. Let’s hope the folks at FBI NHS and the rest as a result of Trumps abuse.

            • Stacey says:

              Wait a minute, I’m confused. Are we saying these people who came are Trump’s upper income cohort that can afford to travel across the country to go do this AND that someone paid for them to do so? Those 2 arguments don’t go together well.

              There were a lot of ‘professionals’ of various stripes who’ve become known or made themselves known before they get outed and got in front of their consequences, but the vast majority of the people I’m seeing in these crowd scenes do not LOOK like they have professions or would be hirable for many jobs, frankly. But somehow they are! You see Trump supporters driving expensive trucks, etc. obviously having disposable income such they this expense was not out of range for them. The fact that the media has portrayed them as ‘economically anxious’ all this time is a scandal.

              The only ‘anxiety’ these folks have is that they feel their henceforth unchallenged power and privilege
              being challenged by ‘the other’. This is Alpha Male and whoever they see as the string of Beta’s in the hierarchy coming for them. If only they realized they never were Alphas in the first place!

        • Molly Pitcher says:

          I agree with you completely

          I keep saying this to the people in my home circle. They think I am over-thinking things.

          As awful the events on Wednesday were, I am more concerned about who is behind this.

        • harpie says:

          The Putsch of January 6, 2021
          https://billmoyers.com/story/the-putsch-of-january-6-2021/
          JAMES D. ZIRIN JANUARY 8, 2021

          […] This was a well-planned enterprise. Who financed these people? […] Someone must investigate the riots and find out who was behind it, who organized and financed it and who plotted to launch this shameful attack on the institutions of our democracy—perhaps more fragile than anyone ever thought. […]

          • Chris.EL says:

            very quick idea re: finance.

            How about Manafort + Stone?

            Those two go way, way back, am I right?

            Still I have to say, what do these people really want? Renewal of slavery?

            Is hatred and nastiness fun?

          • Raven Eye says:

            Should we expect an investigation of those arrested to include looking at their transportation and lodging records to see if “follow the money” can be tightened up just a wee bit?

          • Eureka says:

            Anne Nelson: “Thread. Ginni (Mrs. Clarence) Thomas is on Board of Govs. of #CNP Action (lobbying arm), advisory council for Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA—which sent 80 bus loads to yesterday’s Washington Riot. #ShadowNetwork”
            https://twitter.com/anelsona/status/1347526245567918082
            7:51 AM · Jan 8, 2021

            QTs Stern thread (which does not get into financing — plenty of Ginni content, tho!):

            Mark Joseph Stern: “On the morning of Jan. 6, Ginni Thomas—wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—endorsed the protest demanding that Congress overturn the election, then sent her “LOVE” to the demonstrators, who violently overtook the Capitol several hours later. She has not posted since. [screenshots]”
            https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1347395084527017985


            also I am not caught up on comments, je m’excuse if this was already posted

        • Eureka says:

          One way Russia is involved is through their *Soviet style* operation which produced Parler. See the following thread for details including some of the sham stories over its funding (WSJ ultimately IDs Mercers as partial sources — early adopters of all things Russia, Russia, Russia as they appear to be — while other Murdoch properties push the deza). Featuring appearances by old friends like Rudy, Bannon, and their foreign affiliates.

          Be sure to look for the cherry on top, just a great thread:

          Dave Troy: “So let’s talk about Parler. Where did it come from? Founder John Matze met his now wife, Alina Mukhutdinova, in May 15, 2016 in Las Vegas. Alina is from Kazan, Russia. She was on a two week road trip “vacation” across the USA with a friend.”
          https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1327253991936454663
          9:16 AM · Nov 13, 2020

        • Nehoa says:

          As a part hillbilly I agree that you should not lump us all together. Second, I agree that there is a lot more to what happened on Wendsday than meets the eye. I think that the pressure should be to have the professionals do their job as thoroughly as possible. Flip witnesses, follow the money, etc. as possible and then give a factual account of what truly happened. Prof. Synder (On Tyranny) from Yale said that it is important to start with the truth. The foundation of tyranny is built on lies.

            • Ginevra diBenci says:

              Also, it’s Snyder. But spell check wouldn’t catch that. And yes, his utterly and appropriately humorless bottom-line focus does in fact provide many (including me) with needed grounding.

  12. Vinnie Gambone says:

    “….one reform must be that community review boards are able to fire abusive police officers and that individuals fired for abusive behavior are banned from policing anywhere.
    That might work if the review board can actually do the firing.

    I know a lot of cops and 93 percent are decent family guys when they start out. I cringe and seethe when I see clips of protesters screaming in cops face, spiting at cops, throwing bottles, or when I read an officer has been gunned down. No amount of sensitivity training makes you forget when someone spits on you, or worse, a fellow officer gets shot.
    What can be done to dial down some of nastiness in all protest? When you assault a cop you have contributed to this hardening of the lines.
    You can turn a good cop into a bad cop by spitting on him.

    • phred says:

      That was exactly my point. You cannot rely on a police chief or elected officials (who often rely on campaign donations from police fraternal orders) to fire officers, so a community review board must have the authority to do so.

      I agree with you that the majority of officers are good people doing their best often in trying circumstances, but the refusal of unions to remove their bad apples is jeopardizing the republic.

      It was something to behold in the video of the officers calmly standing in front of the Speakers Lobby as a rioter smashed his hand into the glass windows on either side of the officers’ heads. Those officers had no riot gear and they stood there with a level of restraint I have never seen in protest footage before. And yet, these violent hoodlums were escorted out and sent on their way, even though a tactical team showed up who under other circumstances would have pointed their guns at the protesters, handcuffed them, and hauled them off to get booked for every offense they could think of.

      It is hard to know what to make of what is going on within the ranks of D.C. law enforcement (local and federal), but it is very worrying that Jan. 6th is being treated as a single incident with the inauguration right around the corner and to my knowledge no political leaders are actively engaged in getting to the bottom of what is going on here.

      • silcominc says:

        Totally agree. Something is rotten here at fed and local levels. My money is on the Trump appointees at DOD and Fed agencies. I hope we will see a huge purge soon.

    • P J Evans says:

      If a cop can go bad that easily, he isn’t a good cop.
      Bad cops are like contact poison: everyone around them is poisoned or leaves.
      People who are nice to strangers aren’t necessarily good: that’s one way serial killers work. And cults.

  13. Vinnie Gambone says:

    This is a lie. “Despite weeks of preparations, “obviously, what happened no one anticipated,” Michael Sherwin, acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia. ” Two violent proud boy demonstrations in December, but no one anticipated violence Jan 6th. Please. BOLD FACE FUCKING LIE. Fire that guy.

    • cavenewt says:

      The Justice Department, FBI and other agencies began to monitor hotels, flights and social media for weeks and were expecting large crowds. Mayor Muriel Bowser had warned of impending violence for weeks, and businesses had closed in anticipation. She requested National Guard help from the Pentagon on Dec. 31, but the Capitol Police turned down the Jan. 3 offer from the Defense Department…

      The Justice Department’s offer for FBI support as the protesters grew violent was rejected by the Capitol Police, according to the two people familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

      https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380

  14. Savage Librarian says:

    Evict Him

    We don’t care what might afflict him,
    Or how his cult will depict him,
    Ours is but a simple dictum,
    Honor votes that will evict him.

    We hope that justice will convict him,
    It’s been so easy to predict him,
    Unlike all the marks who picked him,
    We clearly saw he had tricked them.

    Now that we have fairly licked him,
    This liar squeals that he’s a victim,
    All rules and courts contradict him,
    He’s the only one who nicked them.

  15. Vinnie Gambone says:

    Let’s say it clearly- these are Hillbilly cop killers. And, if evidence shows it’s true some cops let the hillbilly’s in, they were accessories to the murder of that officer.

    • P J Evans says:

      Vinnie, this is the THIRD TIME you’ve called them “hillbillies”. You’ve been told that they are NOT.
      Can it.

  16. Jenny says:

    Trump is a volunteer of lies. A vile and violent volunteer. This has been building for years.
    Author Sarah Kendzior title speaks volumes, “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America.”

  17. gmoke says:

    “Have you noticed that Trump hasn’t actually said he has ordered the government to prevent further violence?”

    It’s the flip side of Chicago 1968 and Mayor Daley, “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; he’s there to preserve disorder.”

    At the age of 70, this feels like a funhouse mirror of the 60s©™allrightsreserved where the Trmpublicans have become an unholy combination of the Yippies and the Weather Underground rioting for their very own Establishment godlet, Trmp. More fools them.

  18. John Langston says:

    Just a thought about social media and cell phones. With GPS on the cell phones, can the folks on the capitol grounds be traced by the their cell phones? If so, it should be simple to ID most of the guilty parties.

    None of this “manhunt crap” that you see from FBI. Just go through the cell list of those insurrectionists that were on the grounds at the time.

    • P J Evans says:

      It’s been noticed by a number of people – and also that they took a lot of photos and posted them to their social media. (Those pics are how a lot of them are being identified.)

      • Chris.EL says:

        Remember the overhead, flying surveillance recently? Will they utilize such a tool against these rioters/murderers/criminal trespassers/illegal poopers? Course not!

        Each photo has meta data, no?
        ~~~~~~~~
        If you can stomach it, here’s Don Jr. trying to walk in daddy’s big shoes; un-f-ing believable, he has a long long way to go. Really irritating…

        https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/1347948451338838017/pu/img/siW1Tz4xjdltlKgQ?format=jpg&name=small

      • John Langston says:

        They should be able to scoop lots of them. It’s all recorded. Don’t they have cameras in the Capitol blg and grounds too?

        I see they let that rat ledg from WV go on his on own recognizance, WTF? He should be locked up and given a chance for bail in April when they scoop up the rest. There’s a few Fed Attrnys playing footsie.

        • P J Evans says:

          He quit the lege. So he’s got less future than he expected.
          It’s the two from PA that are problems: PA GOP is protecting them.

          • Chris.EL says:

            The W Virginia legislator — think it was on Wikipedia, his service went from 12/20/20 to 1/9/21– man oh man what a FLOP!
            ~~~~~~~~
            I’d like the extrajudicial murder in Oregon — remember the one where the agents just shot the guy — to be investigated. If Trump ordered that, another article of impeachment?

  19. e.a.f. says:

    “THEY HADN’T SEEN THE SIGNS”???? fire the lot of them. They aren’t fit to do the job.
    MSNBC interviewed a Congress woman who advised she had phoned her husband on the evening prior to 6 Jan. to tell him where she kept her last will and testament. that was how concerned she was. I live on Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada and read this blog and some others, followed what has happened in AMerican politics for the past 5 yeas and it was my opinion, there would be a lot of trouble on 6 Jan. So how in the hell didn’t the police departments at least “error” on the side of caution.

    In the past, news reports showed video of tanks, police officers dressed for war, etc. gathering in places where there were going to be peaceful marches by ordinary citizens.

    Over the decades I’ve watched police chiefs advise newscasters they hoped for the best, following sports wins, but were prepared for the worst and had all police officers on duty and on stand bye in areas they thought there might be violence.

    Still to hear and read that these highly paid chiefs of police and others didn’t think this would happen. they are either lying or just plain stupid.
    either way they need to find some other work.

    Where these terrorists attacked, was the most important building in the U.S.A. it was left almost undefended. Once the police/security people saw the masses at the rally and the start of the march they ought to have rushed police and national guards to the capital building to ensure these terrorists did not gain entry. For a nation whose police officers have no difficulty shooting and killing unarmed people in the back as they are leaving it was beyond me, that they did not fire at the advancing crowds until they were trying to break through the glass and doors to get into the main area.

    None of it surprised me and yet I was shocked to my core. It looked like a tin pot dictatorship country with one group trying to take over government, not the country with the best intelligence organizations in the world.

    Many may wonder why a Canadian is outraged about what happened. First, it was an assault on democracy. Two, the U.S.A. has been lecturing other countries for as long as I can remember about the importance of democracy and the U.S.A. almost lost their’s 6 Jan.

    If it was Trump’s goal to tear down the American democracy and destroy the country, he sure had a good run at it. COVID is killing more Americans than anything since the Civil War. he set up this terrorist action. He used the Gobells method for over 4 years. Some times I wonder how much he is being paid to do this. It is hard to imagine an American doing so much damage to their own country. I understand school children say the Pledge of Alligence in school. Perhaps it is time to have them read the Constitution once a week and teachers explain the history of the country and people’s responsibility as citizens.

    Yes, Trump will paint himself as a victim and thankfully he will not be able to send that message out or we could see riots in the streets all over the U.S.A. being led by his supporters. Our Grandfather was the only surviving member of his family after the Holocaust was over. Hearing the news report terrorists were wearing t-shirts which said, 6M wasn’t enough was terrifying. We will most likely hear Trump carry on about how twitter and other companies have violated his Freedom of Speech. Poor Donnie, poor oppressed Donnie. The man needs to leave office and Moscow Mitch needs to step up. Having studied history and heard from the parental units how fast things moved in Europe at times, even one day is too long to leave Donald Trump in office. Those who refuse to deal with this immediately will be guilty of whatever goes down between now and his exit.

    Thank you for writing this article.

    • Chris.EL says:

      From Vienna, Timothy Snyder (on Rachel Maddow) has kept up drum beat warning on Trump.
      ~~
      From Vienna — of all places; since I’m a Californian, baby boomer, I’ve not lived through the *horrors* of 1937, 1938, 1939 and through World War II; my heart is *forever broken — forever broken* for the people whose lives, families, and homes were destroyed.

      The film “Woman in Gold” brings it to life — vividly.

      ~~~~~~~~
      From Vanity Fair:
      “People used to fear Trump’s wrath,” another former friend of Ivanka’s told me. “Now they fear his affiliation. The stink of his family is nearly impossible to get off. How do you associate yourself with the worst, most toxic people in U.S. history?”

  20. Doctor My Eyes says:

    While mildly relieving to hear some Republicans come close to acknowledging what we’re seeing, the surprise, whether feigned or imagined, is infuriating. Who could have guessed that a Russian asset would be so unAmerican? They said they wanted to make government small enough to drown in a bathtub, but they never ever for one minute said that they actually wanted to drown it. They never wanted America not to look like a democracy with human rights. After all, championing democracy is the excuse for intruding into other countries in search of cheap labor and markets. One of the most enlightening overviews I have seen was in a short comment on this site: Trump is the bright, shiny object and will likely be ground to dust in the end, but the dark money thwarting the will of the people will continue working to concentrate wealth and power.

  21. Dizz says:

    An interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the book “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-fascism-future-ruth-ben-ghiat_n_5ff8c215c5b6c77d85e6a3d0

    … this doesn’t work if you don’t have the cult leader. And the leader is the victim. So the leader is the protector, he’s going to save the nation, blah, blah, blah, but once they bonded to him, it’s very fascistic. It’s very fascist. If he’s in trouble, their duty is to save him.

    He’s the biggest danger to society we have. So going forward, I mean, unfortunately, I foresee a lot of turbulence, an attempt to make America as dangerous as possible and blame it on “antifa” and other groups; and a lot of extremism and domestic terrorism, all to create the need for “law and order” government so that Republicans can get back into power.

    Q: You’ve described this kind of leader-follower relationship like a fascistic relationship. Typically how is that spell broken? How do people get out of that? A: Unfortunately, they don’t get out of that.

  22. PhoneInducedPinkEye says:

    In retrospect they should have done this so much sooner. He wields great influence over his extremists via Twitter, and I have to wonder if he would be in the WH without it.

    Biden could use these events as a clear justification to dump Wray. He should. But he won’t.

  23. Nohandle says:

    Reader from the wayback pre FDL and infrequent commenter who never remembers her user name so apologies for that. One thing to remember Is that Twitter is a data company and all decisions are data based. They now have a model solution for what it looks like when shit gets real. The cross provider deplatforming is an indication of true brick shitting by all. Facebook got it first and the Twitter data scientists added that to their model and well it’s probably scarier than we know. Good news is that the ‘patriots’ don’t have a fucking clue about data so lots of investigatory threads to pull.

  24. Raven Eye says:

    A couple of things:

    Operational Intel: The Hotel Harrington had enough presence of mind to close January 4-6. It really ticked off a bunch of the “protesters”. Sad to see that a hotel had a better understanding of the situation than the chief of the Capitol Police.

    Protest Tourists: The folks who breached the Capitol probably gummed up the works of anything more serious that had been planned. Some of us who witnessed these events are criticizing or ridiculing their tourist-like behavior. But, again, looking at through the eyes these protestors, they really weren’t doing anything wrong. I’m sure they thought of it as naughty, but why are they any different that, let’s say, participant’s in the Boston Tea Party? They are on the side of the righteous — the truest of True Americans.

    I came across this Tweet from a woman on an American Airlines flight that was almost diverted because of rowdy behavior:

    “Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸 @iheartmindy Jan 8

    “Wow. I’m on a plane full of patriots flying from DC to Phoenix and we started chanting “USA” …and the Captain came on said told us he’d drop us off in Kansas if he had to if we didn’t obey their every single rule.

    “American Airlines is everything but American.”

    • jplm says:

      Again on the intel given the online information that was available pre Jan 6th about the possible nature of the protest I have a number of questions around:
      • What advice was given to the president that resulted in him using bullet proof glass when addressing the crowd?
      • Was any advice given about his speech and the potential threat to members of Congress that was brewing?
      • What advice was given not to walk with protestors to the capitol as he promised them instead fleeing back to the White House?

      • PhoneInducedPinkEye says:

        Very simple answers.

        When there is a risk to himself, Trump pays attention as he is a physical coward.

        There isn’t anyone left around him who would try to warn him he might be risking the safety of others. Not only that, it’s pretty clear he expected the results he got.

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Can you imagine Trump walking a mile and a half under any circumstances? The guy drives his golf cart on the greens.

  25. BobCon says:

    “looking at through the eyes these protestors, they really weren’t doing anything wrong. I’m sure they thought of it as naughty”

    No, this is stupid.

    Stop and think before writing something like this.

    Think about what it would mean to break through multiple barriers while police were yelling at you that this was illegal, watch doors being caved in, march past smashed wood and broken glass. Police were being attacked with poles and bats in front of them.

    There was none of these “tourists” — such a stupid term — who didn’t know what was happening.

    And the size of the mob and presence of so many people was absolutely a help for the plan. Without thousands of people there the ability of the police to block the entrances would have been much, much better.

    Even if this is a joke of some stupid kind, it’s not funny. Think before writing something like this.

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