Wow. I had no idea they would still have jurisdiction over delivered and received mail.
Republican Senator Ben Sasse says this morning that he would “definitely consider” any article of impeachment approved by the House. Obviously not a strong statement, and coming from a rare Republican who’s been willing to break from Trump on occasion. But he voted against the last impeachment and the fact that he would even come out and make this statement at all cracks the door open a little.
Bundy, Malheur and now DC, were all handled with kid gloves because nobody wants a return to Ruby Ridge, Waco or Pine Ridge. The government haters know that and are taking advantage of the situation.
The solution is to establish reasonable soft boundaries with yellow tape and bull horns. Immediately arrest individual violators. Soft boundaries work if they are strictly enforced.
Mass incursions should be met with mounted police and dogs. Horses and dogs focus even clueless minds.
I haven’t seen it mentioned that a capitol police officer died as a result of injuries sustained in fighting the insurrectionists. A federal murder investigation is being opened.
You need to ask them. A post by a mod said that the best way would be to report your own post and label it “other”.
Fixed the title for you, Heff.
Thanks!
Trump supports have never displayed any use of their higher executive functions, or awareness of cause and effect of any sort. Why WOULDN"T they post about it.
There are reports (might have been that WV legislator) of people posting - then taking it down shortly when they either realized they’d done something stupid, or someone TOLD them they’d done something stupid.
Note to felons in general: When you commit a felony, DON’T DOCUMENT YOUR CONFESSION ON PUBLIC MEDIA.
I hope they charge hundreds with accessory to murder, including one person in particular. . .
How about we charge them all with espionage? Sure, not everyone went into offices and grabbed sensitive material, but even the ones who didn’t enabled the ones who did.
The QAnon people believed some weird stuff.
I’m wondering if that might not make it harder to prove intent for any crimes that require it.
Thanks for starting this thread. I think it might be a good idea to start new ones every couple of days/week - to share the most recent info. Things are moving so fast, and there are a number of threads that get so unwieldy.
i think I read that Melania’s CoS had resigned. The WH must really be emptying out. It is easy to joke, but it is rather sobering to think how few semi-competent people are on-the-job doing whatever needs to be done.
Has anyone heard anything about Trump’s and Pence’s most recent activities? Gotta imagine lapdog Pence is mighty pissed at his boss, not only due to the Twitter-lashing, but as he and his family were in the Capitol!
Yeah, they don’t sound like happy campers right now. The President is mad at Pence because Pence didn’t throw the election for him. Trump doesn’t want to be his friend anymore. Pence is furious because the President threw him under the bus.
But Trump is still happily tweeting away just recently.
From what I understand it is an envelope that can be used to send. It has pelosi’s signature where the stamp should be.
He claims that he left 5 cents on her desk, therefore he didn’t steal it.
According to this article, Pentagon officials sent notes on Jan 4 and 5, before the day of the riot, giving instructions that would hamstring the National Guard from helping the DC Police. They’re now saying it was because of the public backlash to the BLM protests.
No, no, no. Document it every chance you get.
From my representative, posted on Facebook about an hour ago:
Now that the dust has settled, all too literally, on the events at the Capitol on Wednesday, I wanted to share a few thoughts on what it was like to be there, what it means to the country, and where we go from here. For the many of us that were present in Congress during 9/11, it brought back a flood of painful memories, but this time, the damage to our country was self-inflicted, and this time, we are far from unified as a result.
The storming of the Capitol was an act of insurrection, intended to disrupt the most fundamental act of our democracy – the peaceful transition of power. Both Houses of Congress and the Vice President gathered in a Joint Session in the Capitol to perform our duty under the 12th Amendment, to certify and count the electoral votes cast by the States.
In preparation for the Joint Session, and at the Speaker’s request, I had been working for months to study the Constitutional provisions and their history, to understand the role of the Vice President and Congress, and to foresee any objections that might be raised and how to handle them, and to help manage our effort on the floor along with Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Jamie Raskin and Joe Neguse.
Shortly after the reading of the states began, a large group of Republicans, joined by the leadership of their conference, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, objected to counting the electors from Arizona and we divided into our respective houses to debate the matter.
When I spoke on the House floor in opposition to this challenge to the votes of millions of Arizonans, I wanted to emphasize that these Republican objectors were violating their oaths to defend the Constitution, regardless of the outcome of their objection, and doing grave damage to our democracy:
“Nor can we console ourselves with the intoxicating fiction that we can break that oath without consequence because doing so will not succeed in overturning the election. An oath is no less broken, when the breaking fails to achieve its end.
We must be mindful that any who seek to overturn an election, will do injury to our constitution, whatever the result. For just as the propagation of a dangerous myth about this election made this moment inevitable, our actions today will put another train in motion. This election will not be overturned, but what about the next? Or the one after that?
What shall we say when the our democratic legacy is no more substantial than the air, except that we brought trouble to our own house, and inherited the wind.”
Indeed, although I did not know it, there was another train in motion only miles away. Nearby on the National Mall, the President of the United States was inciting a crowd of his supporters. He knowingly spread lies about fraudulent votes, suggesting that the election was stolen, and asserted that the Vice President could unilaterally overturn the results of a free and fair election in which 155 million Americans had cast their ballots. And then, he implored his crowd to go to the Capitol and do something about it. Trump even said he’d join them.
And so they did.
The scene was everything you have seen on television and more. I was on the House Floor taking notes for a rebuttal speech I would make later, when the Speaker was whisked out of the room by security, followed immediately by the Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer. The mob had broken into the Capitol, we were informed, and were headed our way. Police were discharging tear gas, there were reports of gunshots, and we were told to take out the gas masks under each seat and prepare to put them on. One of my colleagues, a veteran, was yelling instructions — “breathe slowly under the hoods or you will pass out.” That is when the mob reached the doors to the House chamber and started battering them and trying to break through. Capitol Police pushed furniture in the way to barricade them out and drew their weapons. The mob broke the glass in the doors, and members were instructed by police to leave the chamber through the rear doors ASAP. We did.
As bad as it was, it could have been worse. There were many in the violent mob who had every intent to attack people they judged to be their enemies, and several Democratic and Republican members told me to try to keep out of sight. As one Republican said, “I know these people and can talk to them. You are in a whole different situation.” I don’t think he meant that he literally knew people in the mob, who were still disembodied and angry voices banging to get through the doors, only that he knew people like them and what they were capable of.
Capitol police ushered us to a secure location. On the way, one of the Republican members was carrying a large wooden stand he had taken from the House chamber, the hand sanitizer still attached to its top. I could tell he meant to use it as a club, if he needed to. “You that worried about your safety?’ I asked him. “Yes,” he said, explaining that he had heard gun shots. I didn’t recognize him and only knew he was a member from the pin on his lapel. “How long have you been here?” I asked, expecting him to tell me that he was in his second or third term in Congress. “72 hours,” he said. “I just got elected.” I wasn’t sure what to say to reassure him, and merely deadpanned, “it’s not always like this.”
As we waited for police and National Guard reinforcements to arrive, I discussed with my colleagues what our next steps should be. I felt strongly that we needed to resume the proceedings as soon as it was safe to do so, that we could not let these thugs interrupt the transition of power any more than they had already. I was pleased to see that sentiment was widely held.
When we did resume, now in the evening, we voted down the objections to the Arizona electors, but nonetheless an astonishing number of Republicans still sought to overturn the results. And after resuming the Joint Session, Republicans objected to counting the certificates from yet another state, Pennsylvania. It was incredible to me that after all this, after seeing the clear and violent implication of their conduct, these members were not finished with their oath breaking.
Late in the evening, I spoke again on the floor. Remarking on the fact that Franklin Roosevelt had given his Four Freedoms speech exactly eighty years earlier, highlighting the dangers of ‘poisonous propaganda’ to our democracy, I called on Republicans to stop. I emphasized the need for unity in the face of the attempted insurrection and a pandemic that is killing thousands of us every day:
“This is the urgency that our new president must address, a virus that will claim more American lives that all our casualties during WWII. To meet that moment will require unity, not discord, will require an abiding faith in our country, in our democracy, in our government’s ability to function and provide for the needs of its citizens.
We cannot continue debating the merits of an election that was fairly conducted, and overwhelmingly won by Joe Biden.
Have we not brought enough damage to this House, to this country? It must stop!”
But it didn’t stop. At around 3 am, we voted on the baseless objections to the Pennsylvania electors, and 138 members of the House (a large majority of the Republican Caucus and their leadership) as well as 7 Republican Senators, voted to reject the votes of millions of Pennsylvanians. Astonishingly, Republican members claimed that the ballots were fraudulent even though they had been elected on the very same ballots. Apparently, as I pointed out during the debate: “What value has consistency when measured against ambition?”
On Thursday morning, I felt a mixture of sadness at what our country has gone through, embarrassment at how we appear in the eyes of the world, anger at the irresponsible actions of my colleagues who have spread lies about the election for months and brought this on themselves and the nation, fury over a president who instigated the rebellion, and a grave concern over the future.
The actions of the mob and those who incited them, the President most of all, are despicable and outrageous, and those who committed crimes need to be held accountable. But we should not lose sight of the fact that what happened in the early hours of the morning, in a chamber with windows broken by bats and not far from statutes flecked with blood, was every bit as much an attack on our democracy as anything the mob tried to do. This assault on our Constitutional order was inspired by people wearing suits and ties, and cloaked in the genteel language of Congressional debate, but their purpose was no less ominous.
Donald Trump lit the fuse which exploded yesterday at the Capitol. Every day that he remains in office, he is a danger to the Republic, and he should leave office immediately, through resignation, the 25th Amendment or impeachment. He should have been removed from office a year ago when the House impeached him and we proved in the Senate trial that he abused his power to cheat in the election. During the trial, we warned that if left in office, he would try to cheat his way into staying there. As I said at the time, the odds that he would do so again were 100 percent.
And as much as I am pleased to see people resigning from his cabinet and former officials speaking out, where were they when they had a chance to stop this dangerous man from destroying the country, except by his side? As we read the sudden expressions of outrage from the likes of Bill Barr, Betsey DeVos, Mick Mulvaney and others, let us remember that these enablers wanted four more years of Donald Trump as president and worked hard to make that so. Their statements now are less about saving the country and more about saving what is left of their shattered reputations.
Donald Trump has been the worst president we have ever had and should be confined to the dustbin of history where he belongs — for this failed insurrection, and everything before it.
Yet even when he’s gone, the evil he has perpetrated will live after him. We can fortify the defenses of the Capitol. We can reinforce doors and put up fences. But we cannot guard our democracy against those who walk the halls of the Capitol, have taken an oath to uphold our Constitution, but refuse to do so.
The work to repair and defend our democracy has never been more urgent or daunting. But we must never back down from this sacred task. I know I won’t.
Congressman Adam Schiff
I think a large part of the reason for Pence’s anger is that his wife and daughter were at the Capitol Wednesday, and they were hiding while protesters were loudly chanting his name as they tried to hunt him down so they could lynch him.
Has the reality sunk in yet?
The President of the United States, angered by the loss of a fair and free election, mustered a civilian army on federal property. This followed a months long effort to convince the American people that an election loss meant their houses would be burnt down and their property seized followed by another months long effort to discredit the election result.
The stated mission of this army was “March to the Capitol to STOP THE STEAL”, and it was organized to coincide with the official formalization of the election, otherwise known as “the steal”.
And apparently every single person involved with our national security was unwilling or unable to tell Trump he could not raise his own army and go to war with the legislative branch, even after an highly armed organizer was arrested while preparing for the attack.
Instead, they stood and watched while he raised this army and attacked the Capitol - because the way it currently works in federal government is that Trump’s instincts supersede intelligence or security concerns.
And their only excuse, and the one that half the American people will buy…is that they only intended to intimidate the legislature.
But this is OK in Trump world.
I can’t find the post ( I’ve written a lot in the last two months and it’s hard to find it ) but sometime either right before or right after the election I posted in one of the “Will Trump end up in jail?” threads. My position was that he wouldn’t, he would continue to get away with crime in the same way he always has, by buying off the victims and throwing his underlings to the wolves.
But I believe I put a caveat on that post, saying that if Trump got as crazy as I thought he was going to get after the election, all bets were off. And they are, I think he might be jailed over this one.
And I want to see our new legislature censure every Republican that indulged this bullshit. Put together an investigative file on each of them, outlining every time they referred to Comey. McCabe and Mueller as the real criminals. Catalog every disparaging remark they made about Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovich, Fiona Hill, and the other impeachment witnesses. Enumerate every single outburst about stolen elections and fraud.
Then release these investigative files (they largely consist of public statements, so that shouldn’t be an issue) and hold a separate legislative session to censure each offending Republican congressman ( probably all but six or so), one at a time.
That is really powerful. Thanks for sharing.
I wonder if Loeffler’s change of heart was similar. Could she have heard some of the shooting in the capitol? Up to that point spouting the claims that she almost certainly knew to be lies was just part of the game of getting re-elected. When the bullets start flying the shit gets real.