Politico reports that the Pentagon says it did everything right so shut up.

One obvious complication here is that Trump stuffed a lot of his people into the Pentagon in preparation for the coup so it could be Trump’s people now saying don’t be silly of course we didn’t help the coup attempt.

But Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and other top officials noted that in the days leading up to Wednesday, federal and D.C. law enforcement officials requested only 340 unarmed DoD personnel to do specific missions, primarily traffic and crowd control… At the time, officials had a wide range of estimates for the size of the crowds that would descend on Washington for Wednesday’s procedural vote to certify President-elect

… Read the rest

This is chilling.

https://twitter.com/themaxburns/status/1348035751825592325

It was the Trump people who refused to send in the National Guard. Somehow I didn’t realize that. You’d think the “National” part would be a clue, but I missed it.

https://twitter.com/themaxburns/status/1348037946981679109

Oy. I didn’t know that either.

God damn.… Read the rest

Military honor yadda yadda. Ronan Farrow reports:

As insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol this week, a few figures stood out. One man, clad in a combat helmet, body armor, and other tactical gear, was among the group that made it to the inner reaches of the building. Carrying zip-tie handcuffs, he was captured in photographs and videos on the Senate floor and with a group that descended on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite…

…A day after the riots, John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, at the University of Toronto’s Munk School, notified the F.B.I. that he suspected the man was retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Rendall Brock, Jr., a Texas-based Air Force Academy graduate and combat veteran.

A … Read the rest

“Oh,” they cry, “hey gee guess what, it turns out he really is a fascist.”

Of course he really is a fascist. What do you think fascists are? Magic beings with golden horns, and plutonium hair, and the ability to walk on the ceiling? Fascists aren’t special, they’re just fascist. They’re just power-mad and violent and nationalistic and racist and brutal. A dribbling moron like Trump can be one, easily.

On Friday afternoon, 48 hours after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by violent insurrectionists encouraged by Donald Trump in an attempt to overthrow the government in protest of his election loss, a senior member of his administration spoke to me while he was driving to work.

“This is

… Read the rest

pic.twitter.com/2VOjppqkdi

— BlueChairss (@BChairss) January 9, 2021

H/t KBPlayer… Read the rest

More arrests.

On Friday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced charges against a man accused of bringing guns and molotov cocktails to Washington. Another was reported to have had an assault rifle and ammunition and told friends he planned to shoot Pelosi, the House speaker, or run her over.

In a Saturday lunchtime statement, the US attorney’s office for District of Columbia announced the arrest and charging of three suspects, among them Jacob Anthony Chansley of Arizona, who also goes by the name of Jake Angeli and who was photographed in horned headwear and dressed in fur pelts, in Vice-President Mike Pence’s seat in the Senate chamber.

The 33-year-old self-styled “QAnon shaman”, “entered the Capitol building dressed

… Read the rest

Oh good, they found this guy. I wanted to see his ass busted.

A man photographed lounging with his foot on the desk in House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in Washington as part of a pro-Trump mob that breached security and rampaged through the US Capitol was arrested on Friday.

“Foot” is kind of euphemistic for it.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

That’s not just a foot, it’s a big heavy hard boot, it’s Orwell’s boot stamping on a human face forever. That’s a man brandishing his boot in the office of a powerful woman. That photo conveys so many messages it would take hours to list them all.

Richard Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas, was taken into custody in that

… Read the rest

More medium-size rodents fleeing the sinking gangster:

Donald Trump’s grip on the US presidency appeared increasingly tenuous on Saturday as Democrats advanced plans to impeach him for a second time, political allies continued to abandon him, and Twitter banned his account, removing his most powerful way to spread lies and incite violence.

Adding to the pressure in the aftermath of Wednesday’s deadly riot in the US Capitol building by Trump supporters, one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, openly called for the president’s removal.

“I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” she said, punctuating the wave of disgust that followed Trump’s goading of a mob seeking to overturn his election defeat by

… Read the rest

Loser Don tried to get around his banishment from Twitter by using the official POTUS account, but he failed because oddly enough Twitter understands that Trump tweeting as POTUS is still Trump, and they zapped the tweets immediately.

This is built in. Loser D can of course use another outlet, or perhaps use another IP address to set up a new Twitter account, but he can’t do it as himself, because Twitter won’t let him, and doing it as someone else is no use to him. He already has plenty of slavish someone elses who will praise him from now until the earth falls into the sun, and what he wants is to speak in his own glorious albeit … Read the rest

They watched it.

Correction: this is the pre-speech warm up team.

https://twitter.com/edi_samira/status/1347176030495272960… Read the rest

Twitter finally did it.

Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account on Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Not to mention further lies and abuse and bullying.

The company banned the president’s account after years of public pressure and several attempts to limit the reach of his account in recent days. Hundreds of Twitter employees signed a letter urging Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban the president for using the platform to incite violence in the wake of the Capitol siege.

“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” Twitter said in a

… Read the rest

They said no thanks.

According to the Associated Press, the Capitol Police knew about the potential threat of the riot days before it took place, but rejected offers of help from the National Guard and the FBI. Officials said that they wanted to avoid using federal force against Americans, as they had done this summer.

Uh………………………….

So when it’s Black Lives Matter, it’s deadly force time, but when it’s pasty-faced fascists, it’s hello nice to see you please don’t steal anything worth more than $5000.

The choice to turn down help amid warnings of an insurrection is as revealing as it is disturbing: Why did law enforcement assume that they’d encounter violence from protesters marching for Black lives in

… Read the rest

Accounts differ. CNN’s account of how Kevin Greeson died inside the Capitol:

Greeson had a history of high blood pressure and suffered a heart attack amid the excitement, his family said in a statement to CNN. He was an advocate of Trump and attended the event to show his support.

“He was excited to be there to experience this event,” the statement said. “He was not there to participate in violence or rioting, nor did he condone such actions.”

Well that’s not true. He was inside the Capitol. He was, necessarily, participating in the violence and rioting that enabled the rioters to be inside the Capitol.

Also…

Dead from heart attack. Kevin Greyson replied on Parler to post floating “militia

… Read the rest

They’re hustling.

A growing corps of House Democrats, furious over the invasion of the Capitol on Wednesday by a mob inspired and encouraged by President Trump, is pushing to rapidly impeach the president a second time — hoping to force Trump from office even a few days early rather than allow him to leave on his own terms.

Removing Trump by constitutional means is a tall order for the 12 days remaining in his presidency, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not made a formal determination to move forward with a second impeachment, even as she consulted Friday with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about curbing Trump’s ability to launch nuclear weapons.

That ability should … Read the rest

Takes some nerve.

Been spreading lies about the election for months, voted to disenfranchise millions in Arizona and Pennsylvania, but bygones amirite https://t.co/lj9C7d6gBP

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 8, 2021

WE must work together – says one of Trump’s loyal lapdogs. It’s not the Democrats who raised “the temperature” by enabling the treasonous mob boss who tried to incite a coup two days ago.… Read the rest

Anyway he’s already taken it back.

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!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021

Failed useless impotent loser tries to bully world by shouting.

Meanwhile he has five deaths on his hands – five people died because of his coup attempt. Four were coup-attempters and one was a cop resisting them.

But he’s not interested in that. He doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t feel any shame or guilt about that. He has other fish to fry.

To all of those

… Read the rest

The BBC is also asking pointed questions about the abject failure to stop the attempted coup on Wednesday.

Criticism centres on preparation by police and their failure to anticipate possible violence, despite evidence that radical pro-Trump supporters and other groups were openly discussing their plans online.

And despite the fact that it is apparently standard procedure to police-up heavily for a protest or march that could get violent. This one wasn’t even a case of “could get”; the coup plotters were openly shouting that it would get violent.

The Washington Post, citing sources close to the matter, says that Capitol Police charged with guarding the building and its grounds did not make early requests for help from the city’s main

… Read the rest

Trump may have had high-level help from federal officials who blocked the normal procedures for a potentially violent DC protest.

The supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday to stop the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory were attempting a violent coup that multiple European security officials said appeared to have at least tacit support from aspects of the US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex.

Insider spoke with three officials on Thursday morning: a French police official responsible for public security in a key section of central Paris, and two intelligence officials from NATO countries who directly work in counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations involving the US, terrorism, and Russia.

People who know … Read the rest

He’s surrendered…until he takes it back.

pic.twitter.com/csX07ZVWGe

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021

… Read the rest

A new martyr for free speech! Not really martyr, since he’s not dead, but you know. Martyrish.

My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021

He wasn’t really representing his constituents by pretending to believe Trump’s lies about the election; he wasn’t leading a debate about voter integrity, because that’s not what the pretend debate was about; it does look like sedition to try to overturn an election by lying about voter fraud; big publishing companies are not “the Left.”

And, crucial point, it’s not “canceling everything we don’t approve of” to resist efforts to steal an election.… Read the rest