Another gruesome bit of fallout from the insurrection:

Three lawmakers who had to shelter for safety during the US Capitol riot have tested positive for Covid-19.

Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state, announced her positive result early on Tuesday, while chastising Republican colleagues who refused to wear masks while they waited in a secured room for more than five hours.

She’s the Democrat from Seattle; I’m in her district and of course voted for her. It’s simply disgusting that the Republicans refused to wear masks. Disgusting, contemptible, murderous, inexcusable.

The New Jersey representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, also a Democrat, said she decided to get tested because of the possibility of exposure and tested positive. She also tweeted that she was receiving monoclonal antibody treatment – which is still being investigated – on the advice of her doctor. Coleman, 75, is a cancer survivor.

So, high risk. Her Republican “colleagues” may have killed her.

Later on Tuesday, Brad Schneider, another Democrat, from Illinois, announced he too had tested positive. “Today, I am now in strict isolation, worried that I have risked my wife’s health and angry at the selfishness and arrogance of the anti-maskers who put their own contempt and disregard for decency ahead of the health and safety of their colleagues and our staff,” he said in a statement on his website.

What is it even for? I don’t get the politics of it. It’s not free enterprise, it’s not patriotism, it’s not militarism, it’s not religion – what is it? Just being bloody-minded for the sake of it? They’re going with that?

And it gets even worse.

They mocked them!

Jesus these people.

Jayapal called for “serious fines” to be levied on the lawmakers who did not wear a mask, putting their colleagues at risk. Six Republicans, including the Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, were seen on a tape refusing to accept a mask, according to CNN. …

Political infighting over the virus does not seem to be going away with the Trump administration. Greene released a statement about her refusal to protect her colleagues last Wednesday.

“Congresswoman Greene is a healthy adult who tested negative for Covid at the White House just this week,” it said.

“She does not believe healthy Americans should be forced to muzzle themselves with a mask. America needs to reopen and get back to normal.”

There’s no vaccine for stupid.

Fascist Don regrets nothing.

An unrepentant Donald Trump has denied inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol last week, claiming his speech before the violence was “totally appropriate”.

So he’s saying it’s totally appropriate that five people were killed.

“So if you read my speech, and many people have done it, and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media, on television, it’s been analysed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” Trump insisted at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, ahead of a trip to Texas.

No, “people” didn’t. A small minority of Trump fans may think that, but generic “people” do not.

Shortly before noon last Wednesday, the president gave an incendiary speech to thousands of supporters, insisting his election defeat by Joe Biden could be overturned and urging them to march to the Capitol and “fight much harder” against “bad people”.

He said: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.”

Democrats have directly linked the speech, and previous Trump comments, to the carnage that unfolded when rioters, some carrying Confederate flags, fought with police and looted congressional offices.

…and were only just barely prevented from murdering legislators.

Behind the scenes, the president has reportedly continued his retreat into paranoia and unreality, repeating in a conversation with the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, the outlandish lie that so-called “antifa” leftwing activists, not his supporters, were responsible for death and destruction inside the Capitol.

“It’s not Antifa,” McCarthy reportedly replied. “It’s Maga. I know. I was there.”

So even McCarthy isn’t one of those “people” Trump cited.

A House vote to impeach Trump on one article, for incitement of insurrection, is expected on Wednesday. The timetable for an ensuing Senate trial was uncertain. If Trump is convicted after he leaves power, he will be disqualified from running for office again.

I didn’t know the Senate trial could happen after the end of this term. Good to know.

He will probably use this border visit to do more inciting, because he hasn’t done nearly enough yet.

Multiple outlets confirmed an ABC News report that the FBI expects armed pro-Trump protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington DC before inauguration day.

Explanations for why Trump himself could not be reached as the Capitol was attacked continued to emerge. According to the Washington Post, quoting an unnamed close adviser, the president was “hard to reach … because it was live TV”.

“If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls,” the adviser said. “If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.”

He was too busy watching it to do his job helping to terminate it.

Former federal cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, who Trump fired for saying the election was secure, told CNN: “This is the equivalent of ignoring that pain in your chest for a couple weeks and then all of a sudden you have a catastrophic heart attack.

“We are on the verge of what I fear to be a pretty significant breakdown in democracy and civil society here.”

Eight days.

Medal of skunkery, it should be. Shirtsleeves Jordan gets his gong:

President Donald Trump on Monday awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the outgoing president’s fiercest GOP allies.

And by “fiercest” PBS means most dishonest, most bullying, most shameless.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, established by President John F. Kennedy, is meant to recognize those who have made an “especially meritorious contribution” to national security, world peace or ”cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

It’s not meant to recognize those who have done favors for a criminal president.

Last week, Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to another Republican ally, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, in a private ceremony.

Another truly horrible human being.

Trump has not appeared in public since delivering a grievance-filled speech five days ago at a rally near the White House shortly before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as Congress began formally counting the Electoral College votes to certify his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.

Maybe his face has turned green and started dropping off.

Oh he’s so BUTCH.

First of all Hogan Gidley looks exactly like Alfred E. Newman, but more to the point – Trump, masculine??? The goldy hair dye? The ridiculous fluffy ferfy flippy wavey twirly hair arrangement? The heavy makeup? The whining? The pouting? The inability to walk a tenth of a mile?

The fear of cats? The endless bullying? The tiny fingers on the tiny hands? The stupid little mincey gestures?

There’s a confusion here. Trump is mean, and rude, and piggy, and a bully, but that doesn’t make him masculine…or feminine, either – it makes him an asshole.

Ok now they’ve gotten to him. Impeachment no big deal, but the PGA? Ouch!

That is, a much bigger wound, not a much smaller one. You’d think the other way around, but no. Being president is just for giggles, golf is serious.

What did they do?

ABC News:

As he faces a lonely end to his presidency, Donald Trump learned Sunday evening that, in the wake of last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, he has lost one of the relationships he values most: his partnership with the Professional Golfers’ Association.

While the embattled president has been hunkered down to try and preserve his political career, the PGA of America, the proprietors of one of golf’s four major championship tournaments, announced that it plans to move its 2022 PGA Championship away from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.

…

Holding the tournament at Trump Bedminster, Richerson said, would be “detrimental” to the PGA of America’s brand and put the organization’s ability to function “at risk.”

Shortly after the announcement, the Trump Organization expressed disappointment with the move in a statement of their own.

“We have had a beautiful partnership with the PGA of America and are incredibly disappointed with their decision,” said a spokesperson for The Trump Organization. “This is a breach of a binding contract and they have no right to terminate the agreement. As an organization we have invested many, many millions of dollars in the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster. We will continue to promote the game of golf on every level and remain focused on operating the finest golf courses anywhere in the world.”

They’ve poked him in the eye before.

In 2016, the PGA Tour, golf’s professional circuit, prematurely ended an agreement to stage a World Golf Championship event at Trump National Doral resort in Miami, Fla., after then-candidate Trump made disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants on the campaign trail, and moved the event to Mexico City.

Classy.

He poisons everything.

Florida wildlife officials are appealing to the public for help after a manatee was found with U.S. President Donald Trump’s last name carved into its back.

…

The animal was reported to authorities over the weekend, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the Citrus County Chronicle. Anyone with information is being asked to contact Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation.

A harassment investigation is underway. A spokesperson for the FWS declined to comment to the Chronicle, citing the ongoing investigation. He added that harassing a manatee is a crime punishable by up to one year in prison and a US$50,000 fine.

It’s not the first time that a Trump tag has appeared on a wild animal. Conservationists in North Carolina were upset last summer when they found a Trump 2020 campaign slogan attached to a bear’s tracking collar.

I guess the message is “Trump hates animals, especially endangered ones, so we’re tormenting them in his honor”?

It wasn’t ideology, it was jihad. Ohhhh ok then, that’s completely different.

A man who stabbed three people to death in a Reading park believed he was carrying out “an act of religious jihad”, a court has heard.

Khairi Saadallah, 26, stabbed to death James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, during the attack in Forbury Gardens in June.

As part of his sentencing, a hearing will decide if he was motivated by a religious or ideological cause.

Ok, seriously, what is the difference? One has a god (or gods) involved and the other doesn’t, but is that a distinction that makes any difference? I don’t see it, myself. Theocracy is an ideology, and Islamism is both theocracy and (surely) an ideology.

Saadallah has admitted three counts of murder and attempted murder, but denies he was motivated by an ideology.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan QC told the court he “executed” his victims and intended to “kill as many people as he could” in the name of violent jihad.

Doing something in the name of violent jihad is doing it at the behest of an ideology. Isn’t it?

More insurrection-cheerleading, this time from the woman who is married to Clarence Thomas.

She did the cheerleading before the insurrectionists smashed their way into the Capitol, but that still entailed cheerleading a campaign to overturn an election and hand it to the murderous corrupt criminal who lost. She shares in the evil.

On Wednesday morning, Ginni Thomas—wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—endorsed the rally in Washington demanding that Congress overturn the election. She then sent her “LOVE” to the demonstrators, who violently overtook the Capitol several hours later. Two days later, Thomas amended her post with the addendum: “[Note: written before violence in US Capitol].” By that point, five people involved in the insurrection, including a Capitol Police officer, had died.

It took her two days. So she didn’t do it while people were tweeting from inside the Chamber, or an hour or two later as all those photos and clips started to appear. She waited two days.

Thomas, a conservative lobbyist and zealous supporter of Donald Trump, has fervently defended the president over the last four years. On her Facebook page, she frequently promotes baseless conspiracy theories about a “coup” against Trump led by Jewish philanthropist George Soros, a frequent target of anti-Semitic hate. Thomas draws many of these theories from fringe corners of the internet, including an anti-vax Facebook group that claimed Bill Gates would use the COVID vaccine to kill people. In recent months, she also amplified unsubstantiated corruption claims against Joe Biden while insisting, falsely, that the Obama administration illegally spied on Trump’s 2016 campaign, then tried to rig the election against him.

Watergate seems almost cozy in comparison to these people.

H/t What a Maroon

Queen Melania has issued a disgusting “statement” on official White House stationery.

With nearly every experience I have had, I found myself carrying many individual’s [sic] stories home with me in my heart.

Most recently, my heart goes out to: Air Force Veteran, Ashli Babbitt, Benjamin Philips, Kevin Greeson, Roseanne Boyland, and Capitol Police Officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood. I pray for their families comfort and strength during this difficult time.

Her “heart goes out” to, first of all, the ex-military woman who tried to climb through the broken window of the door barring entry to the House floor. Legislators were crouched or prone on the floor of that chamber, hoping not to be slaughtered by people like Ashli Babbitt. Queen Melania puts her first and the two Capitol cops last. Last.

But never mind that, because it gets even worse. The very next paragraph reveals that actually it’s all about her.

I am disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week. I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me – from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda. This time is solely about healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.

She says, using it for personal whine.

Told you it was disgusting.

Well we didn’t mean that…

Leaders from the Republican Attorneys General Association face mounting criticism after sending out a robocall that urged supporters of Donald Trump to join the 6 January march on the US Capitol that resulted in a deadly insurrection.

We thought it was going to be a protest! Not an insurrection! Please don’t impeach us.

“At [1pm”] we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” a robocall from the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), a fundraising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, said.

Spot the irony? Good old rule of law, eh? Defend rule of law by forcing your way into the Capitol in hopes of killing all the Democrats. Sic semper tyrannis amirite?

The voice then said: “We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight to protect the integrity of our election.”

Patriots=Republicans. Democrats are Unpatriots, so we have to execute them all.

Also, this collective of Republican Attorneys General was claiming the election was stolen, on the basis of zero evidence that it was and a lot of evidence that it wasn’t. Not something you want prosecutors doing, to put it mildly.

They’re now saying they knew nothing about it, they were busy tidying their desks, please go away.

The Democratic Attorneys General Associationhas rejected the Republican defense, releasing a statement highlighting Republican leaders who they say incited the violence by taking up the president’s long-debunked claims of election fraud.

…

The Democratic attorneys general also said that the Republican association’s “former chair spoke at the rally that incited the mob,”pinpointing Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, and that “former [Missouri attorney general] Josh Hawley led the effort in Congress to undermine the election”.

Rule of law, people, rule of law.

The arrests are up to 20.

Twenty federal criminal defendants related to last week’s deadly pro-Trump riot at the US Capitol have been rounded up across the country since the insurrection, with the allegations showing the danger of the mob.

Some of the defendants are accused of bringing weapons and bombs to Capitol Hill, indicative of the extremism of parts of the crowd. Others were photographed ransacking the building, smiling while posing with congressional items such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern or at her staffer’s desk, or publicly bragged about the crowd’s violent and destructive joyride.

The most unsettling of the allegations so far appear to be those against Lonnie Coffman, an Alabama man charged after authorities found 11 homemade bombs, an assault rifle and a handgun in his truck parked two blocks from the Capitol. The truck had sat there all morning during the pro-Trump rally, and Coffman was arrested as he tried to return to the vehicle after dusk.

Another guy allegedly sent text messages saying he wanted to shoot Pelosi, and brought hundreds of rounds of ammunition and three guns to DC from Colorado. That’s a hefty drive.

On Sunday night, authorities arrested two more men, Eric Munchel of Tennessee and Larry Rendell Brock of Texas. Both had drawn attention online because of photos showing them wearing body armor inside the Capitol building and carrying plastic ties that could restrain a person.

Brock is the ex-military one.

As new details emerge, it has become obvious that lawmakers faced more imminent danger than was understood as the attack unfolded on live television.

As in lots of the insurrectionists really did intend to murder those lawmakers and did have the means to do so.

The top federal prosecutor in Washington, DC, Michael Sherwin, said he expected hundreds of people could be charged in the aftermath of the attack, and investigations may take months to understand it fully.

“I would not be surprised if we find loose affiliations of groups that were organized and had plans in place,” Sherwin said Sunday. “We saw in some of these individuals we identified — they look paramilitary almost, right? You’ve got the uniform, you’ve got communication, you have all the paraphernalia. Those show indications of affiliation and a command-and-control. So I believe we are going to find those hallmarks.”

This wasn’t a protest that spiraled out of control. Many in that mob were not playing.

Trump is feeling defiant. It’s all good! Nobody can touch him! He’s going to go on a farewell tour to brag about his “accomplishments.”

Trump is confident Vice President Mike Pence and members of his cabinet won’t attempt to remove him under the 25th Amendment, the people said. Pence is dismissive of the idea of trying to use that authority to drive Trump from office, one person said.

The president and some allies also believe Democrats are overreaching by trying to once again impeach him over Wednesday’s mob at the Capitol, and think Senate conviction would be unlikely in any event.

Oh yes, overreaching, it’s shocking isn’t it, so unlike Trump’s sending his fans to make war on Congress.

Trump plans to run out the clock on his four years in office by highlighting what he believes are his biggest accomplishments, including the barrier his administration built on at least part of the U.S. border with Mexico. A trip to Alamo, Texas, near the border is expected on Tuesday, a White House spokesman said.

It will turn out to be an Alamo Rent a Car in Amarillo.

In sum, it’s a last-ditch attempt to rehabilitate Trump’s legacy after his supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, resulting in five deaths including that of a Capitol Police officer.

Should be a doddle. Just flap the hands, point the finger, make the pinch gesture, stick the lips out, snap the head back and forth, and there’s the legacy, rehabilitated.

A small group of House Republicans wrote to Joe Biden on Saturday, pleading with him to persuade Speaker Nancy Pelosi to back off impeachment as an olive branch in the interest of national unity.

That takes some monumental gall. How about they offer the olive branch for a change? By, for instance, impeaching and removing Trump? Why is it up to the god damn victims of a god damn murderous attack to offer it?

A former governor of California, a Republican, says what he thinks of the attempted insurrection or coup the other day.

He grew up in Austria in the wake of WW2. He knows what Kristallnacht was.

It’s surprisingly powerful.

[Updating to add: I forgot to warn about the music. I did mean to. It’s very annoying.]

Foreign Policy posted an interesting conversation during the insurrection, about what exactly the name for it should be.

Naunihal Singh: This is not a military coup because that would involve the president using the military or the Secret Service or some armed branch of the government to get his way. Nor would I argue that it is what some people have called a civilian coup or an executive coup. Even autogolpes involve the threat of military force.

In a sense he was using them if he had arranged for them to do nothing.

…

JT: Let’s talk about that for a second. What we did have is the president inciting protesters, who then went to the Capitol to interfere with a constitutionally established process to democratically transfer power to his successor. What should we call that?

NS: I’m not a lawyer, but we have to look and see whether it satisfies the requirements of sedition—and if the shoe fits, we should call it that. This is a violation both of principles and of law, being incited deliberately.

I get why people call it a coup: It’s because they want to say it’s an illegitimate power grab. The problem is that then they end up looking at the military as the actors who are engaged in this power grab. Whereas, in fact, what you have is Trump and all the people who are enabling Trump.

Some of whom are in the military or in charge of the military. In this instance doing nothing was doing something. It’s not clear, at least to me, how systematic all this was, but if military brass did stand by because Trump told them to, I call that the military doing something.

I see they got there too.

JT: Does it change the equation or the terminology if, for example, the stories about the civilian leadership of the Defense Department initially refusing to help the D.C. police are confirmed?

NS: Maybe, yes. If, in fact, what we are seeing here is not just an unwillingness to adequately police but a tacit cooperation with the protesters, then yes.

Ok then.

Jim Wright aka Stonekettle:

Now that Allied Forces have once again taken Washington, everyone is ashamed of being a Nazi.

I told you.

I did. I told you.

2021 gonna be the year of Republican redemption arcs. Why, I, um, I never liked that guy anyway! It’s true! No, really, I was, uh, RESISTING FROM INSIDE, yeah! That’s it, resisting from inside. Uh, uh, Defund the Police! Yeah! I’m one of you! <takes a knee>

We’ll call it The General John F. Kelly Defense

Kelly was mouthing off on MSNBC the other night, as if he were some kind of resistance hero. It’s enough to make you puke.

At least Trump is miserable.

The president is “ballistic,” a senior administration official said after Twitter permanently took down his account, citing the possibility that it would be used in the final 12 days of Trump’s presidency to incite violence. The official said Trump was “scrambling to figure out what his options are.”

There aren’t any. I said this yesterday so sorry for the repetition, but there aren’t any. He can create his own platform blah blah but it won’t be Twitter, and neither will anything else. Parler isn’t Twitter, and if Trump started a new Twitter called Tritter or Ditter it still wouldn’t be Twitter.

In a statement issued by the White House, Trump said he’d been “negotiating with various other sites” while “we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.” But aides did not reveal what plans were in the works. When Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr. offered up a URL to those hoping to keep tabs of his father’s whereabouts, it was a site that had been purchased in 2009 and, in recent years, a place where his books were sold. For those who did sign up, an email was sent, plugging his latest work: “Liberal Privilege”.

“As you know, the election is coming up,” it read, of the contest that took place two months ago.

What I’m saying. Of course they can do that, but they can’t duplicate Twitter. They especially can’t duplicate Twitter in the next ten days, and after that, however hard he works to generate new headlines, Trump is not going to have the platform he’s had for the past almost 4 years. It’s over, Don. You’ve got a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

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 Joe Biden’s win, from 2,000 to 80,000 people, McCarthy said. In an earlier press conference, he said the idea of rioters storming the Capitol wasn’t in his “wildest imagination.”

Well why not? I wasn’t expecting it either but it’s not my job to keep track of security threats, but it is his job. Word is the planning was visible all over social media, and surely it is someone’s job to pay attention to coup-planning and pass the information on to people responsible for security. They certainly seemed to expect, or to be eager to pretend to expect, massive violence and insurrection last summer when it was protests against racism and police violence, so why not now when it’s literal plans to overturn an election by force? WHY NOT NOW? Why wasn’t it in Ryan’s wildest imagination that people who were publicly planning to storm the Capitol would do just that?

Despite widespread social media activity that suggested the protests might be violent, federal and local officials believed they had sufficient personnel to handle the situation, said chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman, noting that the Pentagon does not conduct domestic intelligence collection.

Ok but does the Pentagon listen to people who do conduct domestic intelligence collection? Pentagon people were there for Trump’s violent clearance of Lafayette Park and march to the church, so what was different about this recent march and insurrection?

The Justice Department and other law enforcement told the Pentagon repeatedly that they had no indications that there would be “significant violent protests,” said Ken Rapuano, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland security.

If that’s true then the people who told the Pentagon that were in on the plot. The “indications” were out there in public, including Trump’s tweets.

Once the protests turned violent and it became clear the Capitol Police would need backup, Miller moved to approve Bowser’s request for additional D.C. Guardsmen, and later authorized thousands more personnel from six states to help civil authorities maintain order in the city, the officials said.

Why later? Why not instantly?

Army officials initially expressed concern about the request, because part of the original agreement was to keep Guardsmen away from the Capitol on Wednesday, a defense official said. Officials have messaged for weeks that the military will have no role in determining the outcome of the election.

Yeaaaah I don’t think that’s supposed to mean “the military will stand by and watch placidly as armed fascists seize the Capitol and murder half the Congress.”

Top Pentagon leaders were criticized this summer when National Guardsmen helped clear Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters in order for Trump to stage a photo op in front of a church holding a Bible.

You couldn’t make it up. In the summer Trump staged a fascist military suppression of peaceful protest and the people cried foul, so in the winter Trump staged a violent coup to wipe out the Democratic half of Congress and hand the election to himself and the military watched it on tv.

This is chilling.

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.

Oy. I didn’t know that either.

God damn.

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 patriot, storming the US Congress. What would unpatriotic look like?

Two family members and a longtime friend said that Brock’s political views had grown increasingly radical in recent years. Bill Leake, who flew with Brock in the Air Force for a decade, said that he had distanced himself from Brock. “I don’t contact him anymore ’cause he’s gotten extreme,” Leake told me. In recent years, Brock had become an increasingly committed supporter of Donald Trump, frequently wearing a Make America Great Again hat. In the days leading up to the siege of the Capitol, Brock had posted to social media about his plans to travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in Trump’s “Save America” rally. Brock’s family members said that he called himself a patriot, and that his expressions of that identity had become increasingly strident. One recalled “weird rage talk, basically, saying he’s willing to get in trouble to defend what he thinks is right, which is Trump being the President, I guess.” Both family members said that Brock had made racist remarks in their presence and that they believed white-supremacist views may have contributed to his motivations.

Farrow talked to him, and he told a touching story about going there for patriotic reasons, and thinking he was welcome to go into the Capitol (which I think does apply to some public areas at some times, but probably not so much when there are barriers in place and there’s a riot happening and the cops are trying to push back, and which I’m quite sure doesn’t apply to the floor of the House or Senate or to legislators’ offices without an appointment or invitation).

Legal experts said that people who breached the Capitol could face a range of criminal charges, from disorderly conduct to seditious conspiracy. “Presumably this person broke into Congress in order to stop or intimidate or interfere with the counting of the Electoral College certification, a fundamental feature of the peaceful transition of power in the United States,” Alan Rozenshtein, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota, said.

Well, yes, that’s what he went there for, but aren’t we welcome to do that? Or no?

Brock’s family members and his friend said that his service in the Air Force was central to his identity. Several of Brock’s e-mail addresses and social-media accounts featured his call sign and military nickname, Torch. One family member said that Brock derived “this weird sense of power” from his time as a military pilot, along with a Manichean world view. “He used to tell me that I only saw the world in shades of gray, and that the world was black and white,” the other family member said. 

The military can instill some fine qualities in people, or…it can do the other thing.