Given DC’s gun laws, any display of weaponry (like the Proud Boys usually sport) would have resulted in their immediate arrest. On sight.
Still, there were plenty of backpacks and I’m fairly stunned that there wasn’t more gun play.
Have you read the rest of this thread?
There is absolutely nothing puzzling about any of this. This was planned – The result was not what was planned. I think Pence got cold feet at the eleventh hour. Did you get that: Pence saved American Democracy (or delayed its demise).
It is clear as day this was a coup attempt by Trump aided by Capitol LEO’s.
I really would like to see a better/simpler explanation of what we’ve seen.
The explanation given on local conservative talk radio is that the police have re-evaluated their overly aggressive responses to the summer disorders and what we saw yesterday was a softer policy as a result of the criticism received. It is only a massive coincidence that yesterday’s mob was mostly white and was handled with relatively kid gloves.
Did I see that Twitler is speaking tonight at 9? Confirmed anywhere?
Chuck Schumer says he’s going to fire the head of the Senate Sergeant at Arms office when he takes over.
LOL.
If you believe that I have a great opportunity for you to invest in new water-crossing technology.
Did you see the footage of the cops literally opening the barricades?
I’ve said all along that in coming years, sooner or later, most Trumpists will deny they ever were, the same way that within twenty years of the Civil Rights Act, 99.5% of white people insisted they were all on the side of civil rights.
I didn’t expect the two-faced acts to start this quickly.
It’s certainly right wing bullshit. But it’s something that appeases their audience and will be long forgotten by the next time a largely minority crowd of protestors is forcibly cleared from the streets.
Heard during the Tuesday night conflicts from a Loud Boy directed at police “You’re hurting the wrong people!”
I think you may not be aware of the procedures a private citizen has to go thru to “visit.”
I remember back in the 90s, when you could just walk in. A co-worker and I were in town for training and were astounded at the access our run-of-the-mill gov’t employee badges gave us. We went up some stairs and thru an unmarked door, to be met by a HUGE guard. I clearly remember the size of his sidearm and the marksman medal on his massive chest. We had stumbled into the inner part of the speaker’s office. He firmly escorted us out. But that was a LONG time ago.
It’s obviously reasonable to be worried about people with thumb drives, people in the employ of foreign embassies, etc. One ray of hope in all that is how incredibly stupid the whole thing was. Who would actually have expected that group of cretins to actually be wandering up and down the halls of congress, sitting in Pelosi’s chair, etc. In retrospect it was obviously a MASSIVE opportunity of espionage. Ahead of time… hopefully maybe not?
Everybody is saying heart attack, but I wouldn’t rule out falls and tramplings.
Many embassies are within a three mile radius. From the time of Trump’s call to storm the Capitol for his insurrection, it may have taken the slowest agent 15 minutes to get there.
But they were probably in the crowd already. Not ‘armed’ to steal state secrets - those in there likely didn’t give that a high chance of happening - but if you are in charge of foreign intel and you saw what happened in MI and you heard what the President was saying/tweeting and you were monitoring US social media networks to guage overall sentiment and you saw the stories, posts, more of pro-trump people pouring into DC for the 6th and you saw a rally being planned, by the very President challenging the legitimacy of what’s happening 1 half-mile away, to occur at the same time this President… who has already been impeached once for trying to cheat in this very election… is scheduled to officially lose his power:
If you were head of foreign intel, what would you prepare for? Well, the only way Trump can stymie this is to have the placed stormed, so why not be prepared? It’s your job.
Was it Trumpling-on-Trumpling trampling?
I agree that there are such procedures and that there are places that are clearly off limits, but, unlike military bases and such, there are more points of entry, and the ones that exist are not as fortified as they are in other facilities. For example, the United States Botanic Garden is right next to the capitol and you can simply drive up and park there without any kind of check or control. The Capitol is meant to be accessed, unless they plan for it not being at all accessible, something they should have planned for given what they knew of that day.
There were definitely failures and they were inexcusable but I think it important to note that the Capitol is a porous building security wise, so to just assign every failure to willful actions seems unjustified. As is characterizing it as an extremely secure building that could not be breached as well. Like every event, there were a confluence of causes that made it possible for people to breach the building.
//i\\
I didn’t read all of it, but the author seems to be writing what I’ve been thinking for some time. Most Americans are stunned by this development – gobsmacked – because they don’t recognize what a coup is. But in order to recognize a coup, you have to recognize both what freedom is and what oppression and anti-freedom is as well.
Most Americans since the Cold War – and probably dating back much farther – have been brainwashed into believing a specific definition of freedom. Freedom is capitalism. Freedom is having money. Freedom is being able to buy shit on the internet or at Bed Bath and Beyond.
Except that to many, many other people both in this country, and more importantly, many, many more outside of it, that is not what freedom is; our symbols of capitalism and what makes American “democracy” work in many cases have actually worked damn hard to take away the freedom of others – Americans will probably never ever even take the time to learn about this, let alone understand its implications. That’s probably why some many Americans on this site - one dedicated to debunking ignorance no less - spent the last several years angrily telling me that I was borderline insane for writing what I (and what you and a few others) wrote.
Trump and his minions are idiots. I think that likely explains it. Trump has no capacity to plan anything like a real coup.
I could believe it; there was a large backlash against the overly aggressive response last summer and I’d like to think that the police can learn. I’d have to see some good documentation, though, like emails in September and maybe some training that occurred in November.
Ever since Trump was elected, I’ve held a rather pessimistic view of the collective intelligence of human society, and I’ve become convinced that people can only get dumber, not smarter, over time. I recall that Cervaise said he moved his family out of America because of extrapolation from current trends. I don’t have kids, and I don’t plan on having any as they will be forced to grow up in such an uncertain and harsh future.
To me, you are the Nostradamus of our time. Please never stop posting.
Sergeant at arms has resigned. Pelosi is calling for the chief of capital police to resign.
Please: read all of it. And then read his follow-up articles; reading them all takes about 25-30 minutes, tops. He’s already been thru what you and I are still only thinking about; he knows things that we cannot yet know.
I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. (this one doesn’t generate a preview for some reason eh)
The subject matter is slightly different but I also found value in this article by the same author:
They’d be harder to identify if they had worn masks, don’tcha know.