• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

January 6 Hearings Live

 
southpaw on Twitter: "Feds charge the younger of the zip-tie guys in the senate chamber and his mother with conspiracy. They say they found five pair of flexicuffs at his house during an authorized search. https://t.co/BPOaiQPdtj" / Twitter
noting
Official criminal complaint against those two


Ilhan Omar on Twitter: "😳 “Brock’s former employer that said he had talked in the workplace about killing people of a “particular religion and or race.” Weimer also read social media posts in which Brock referred to a coming civil war and the election being stolen from President Donald Trump.”" / Twitter
noting
Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 on Twitter: "A retired Air Force officer who stormed the Capitol carried zip-tie handcuffs because he intended “to take hostages,” a prosecutor said. “He means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government.” https://t.co/MYcqskHvGU" / Twitter
noting
Prosecutor: Capitol rioter aimed 'to take hostages'
A retired Air Force officer who was part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week carried plastic zip-tie handcuffs because he intended “to take hostages,” a prosecutor said in a Texas court on Thursday.

“He means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer said of retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. without providing specifics.
Click to expand...
 
William Turton on Twitter: "2:39 - panoramic view https://t.co/0POV75naEm" / Twitter

Colin Woodard on Twitter: ".@SenAngusKing on accountability. “If you tell people...that they can’t trust the courts, elected representatives, election officials and the media, then violence is the logical alternative because you are telling people they have no options.” @pressherald https://t.co/7aFQR2JIxz" / Twitter
noting
Sen. King calls out Republicans who ‘divided the country’ and now oppose impeachment - Portland Press Herald - "Maine's junior senator doesn't buy the argument that they can't hold Donald Trump and other elected officials accountable because the country needs to heal."
Sen. Angus King said Thursday that he is exasperated with Republican politicians who argue that Congress shouldn’t hold President Trump accountable for last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol in the name of healing, saying those same people are the ones who created the need for such healing.

“That’s what’s bothering me about this whole discussion is that the people who divided the country are telling us that, ‘No, you can’t hold anyone accountable for these actions because it would divide the country,’” Maine’s junior senator told the Press Herald. “That’s my frustration, because it ill behooves one who has created a crisis to then say you have to ignore what happened.”
Click to expand...
All that talk about "healing" is a big departure from right-wingers' rhetoric about "responsibility". They should resign in shame.
 
Jaime Herrera Beutler on Twitter: "In conversations w/residents about this week's impeachment vote, ..." / Twitter
Jaime Herrera Beutler on Twitter: "In conversations w/residents about this week's impeachment vote, some are unclear on what transpired before & during that involved President Trump.

Here are the indisputable and publicly available facts ⬇️

The president helped organize the January 6 rally. Example:
Peter Navarro releases 36-page report alleging election fraud 'more than sufficient' to swing victory to Trump washex.am/3nwaBCe. A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!

For months, he insisted the election had been stolen and consistently urged people to "fight" in order to change the results: "WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!" (Tweet, Dec. 12)

"@ senatemajldr and Republican Senators have to get tougher, or you won't have a Republican Party anymore. We won the Presidential Election, by a lot. FIGHT FOR IT. Don't let them take it away!" (Dec. 18)

"The 'Justice' Department& the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation's history despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in DC on January 6th"(Dec. 26)

He led Americans to believe that Mike Pence could overturn the Electoral College results, even though the VP does not have that power. On Jan. 5 he tweeted, "The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors."

He told supporters at Georgia rally that day, "I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great Vice President, our great Vice President, comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course if he doesn't come through I won't like him quite as much."

During the president's rally on January 6, he repeated phrases like "fight like hell," and "we're going to have to fight much harder." Many coming to the rally did intend to fight, with physical violence. Leading up to the rally, specific threats were numerous. Hundreds of TikTok videos promoted violence. Thousands of used hashtags promoting a second civil war. One said, "Take your motherf---ing guns. That's the whole point of going." Another online comment said: "travel in packs and do not let them disarm someone without stacking bodies."

Rather than take any action to curb the threats, the president at his rally said, "When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules." He said "You'll never take our country back with weakness." While the riot was in full swing & a mob was in the Capitol hunting Mike Pence, the president tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify."

The mob at the Capitol chanting "Hang Mike Pence."

This one of the mob attacking a Capitol Police officer. As we know, many were beaten and one died because of his injuries.

The commander in chief’s primary job is to protect U.S. citizens. While this mob hunted for Pence, who had fled to a secure location, the only action we know the president took was calling GOP Senators, seeking their support to delay the Electoral College certification. Hours after the Capitol was breached, the president released a pathetic video denouncing the violence but telling the perpetrators "I love you," and "you are special."
Click to expand...
Two months of assertion of victimhood, assertion of a political myth comparable to Germany being stabbed in the back at the end of WWI.
 
Jaime Herrera Beutler on Twitter: "Following up to my Tweets last night, there are a few more facts that we cannot ignore. ⬇️" / Twitter
Following up to my Tweets last night, there are a few more facts that we cannot ignore. ⬇️

This photo was taken on Capitol grounds during the January 6 riot.

I urge you to ask yourself (not anyone else): does the Commander in Chief have a responsibility to try to stop the beating of this police officer?

This was erected for the Vice President during the demonstration outside the Capitol.
(a gallows)

Again, I urge you to ask yourself (not anyone else): did the Commander in Chief have a responsibility to try to stop this from getting out of hand?

In case you answered 'no' to either question, let me share with you the U.S. president's oath of office:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The counting of electoral votes IS the Constitution in process. And a ruthless mob (joined by would be assassins) stopping the counting of electoral votes by force is the epitome of attacking the Constitution.

The president either wanted the mob he helped mobilize to take these steps, or he didn't care enough about his job responsibilities to try to stop them. Either way, it's impeachable.
Click to expand...
 
How Joe Biden Can Help Forge a New National Narrative - "To survive as a democracy, Trump’s ethno-nationalist story of America must be defeated."
That the bonds holding the United States have been weakening has been obvious for more than a decade. We’re divided into red states and blue states and split into geographic blocks that track back to those of the Civil War, whose representatives might as well come from different planets with regard to ideas about the proper role of government, the relationship between church and state, and the connection between individual liberty and the common good. Congress went from being incapable of reliably raising the debt ceiling to being unable to agree that foreign interference in our elections is bad.

...
We stand at a crossroads, as we did in the 1870s, with two paths before us, two American stories. One is ethnic and exclusionary; the other is civic and, in principle, universal, though falling far short of that in practice. They each have their own heroes, iconography, and present-day standard-bearers: Jefferson Davis, the Confederate battle flag, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump on one hand; Abraham Lincoln, the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and the Black Lives Matter movement on the other. Each of these traditions, these explanations for why and for whom the United States exists, grew out of a separate regional culture and yet succeeded in becoming the dominant, consensus view across the federation for decades. Now neither holds sway. Instead, they have been literally clashing with one another in the streets.
Click to expand...
 
George Bancroft in the mid 19th cy.:
His vision—laid out in his epic 10-volume History of the United States—combined his Puritan intellectual birthright with his German mentors’ notion that nations developed like organisms and from a plan history had laid out for them. It held that Americans had been charged by Providence to implement the next stage of the progressive development of human liberty, equality, and freedom, and that this promise was open to people everywhere. “The origin of the language we speak carries us to India; our religion is from Palestine,” Bancroft told the New York Historical Society in 1854. “Of the hymns sung in our churches, some were first heard in Italy, some in the deserts of Arabia, some on the banks of the Euphrates; our arts come from Greece; our jurisprudence from Rome.”
Click to expand...
That was the state of the art of the Indo-European homeland problem back then. Nowadays, we have a much clearer picture.
  • Proto-Germanic homeland: Denmark
  • Proto-Indo-European homeland: E Ukraine - S European Russia - Kazakhstan
The rather naive notion of India-early was reflected in some early reconstructions of PIE, and it also led to Indian self-designation "Aryan" being used as a synonym for "early Indo-European". Around 1900, some prehistorians came to believe that the IE homeland was in central Europe, including Germany, and some German nationaiists *loved* that idea. So that's why the Nazis liked to call themselves Aryans.
 
The challenges to building a dominant, persuasive, civic nationalist politics are formidable. One-third of the country appears to wholeheartedly embrace ethno-nationalism. These are the Americans who not only vote for Trump but also love him and his crude, exclusionary vision of the United States. (There are also plenty of Trump voters who don’t share his ethno-nationalism and might happily support a more civic nationalist presidential candidate—though probably only if they were Republican.)

Another major segment of the population, mostly younger Americans on the political left, believe in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence but argue—because the promises America made to Black, Indigenous, and other nonwhite people have been so consistently not met, and because American foreign power has been so brutally thrown around—that racism and imperialism are immutable aspects of our character and system. The only way to convince this rising generation to enthusiastically embrace a civic nationalist story is to prove them wrong—that is, to deliver domestic policies that finally give a fair deal to Black Americans and a foreign policy that keeps the peace without embroiling the country in brutal and endless wars.

This obviously won’t happen overnight. It is the work of a generation.
Click to expand...

Spencer Ackerman on Twitter: "Journalists who’ve covered state collapses, wars and reactionary violence to our colleagues who can’t believe this is America https://t.co/kiAPqCN5YP" / Twitter
 
Ryan Anderson on Twitter: "@jsrailton Was described by a former spec ops guy as “the scariest picture I saw from the whole thing.” (pic link)" / Twitter - describing zip-tie guy.


Greg Miller on Twitter: "Pentagon leaders installed as part of Trump purge last month blocked DC National Guard from getting riot gear and ammunition as protesters descended on Capitol. https://t.co/zggrUhfRgo" / Twitter
noting
Pentagon placed limits on D.C. Guard ahead of pro-Trump protests due to narrow mission - The Washington Post

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a connection. Did Trump himself give the order to keep the NG from doing guard duty?


b-boy bouiebaisse on Twitter: "it’s not just the storming but the impunity that makes this so reminiscent of late-Reconstruction era attacks on elected officials throughout the South." / Twitter
then
b-boy bouiebaisse on Twitter: "and it’s the impunity, i should say, that sent the whole thing toppling. once white vigilantes realized they would never pay for the violence, there was no reason to ever stop." / Twitter

Noah Caine on Twitter: "to make it here without dying is the epitome of white privilege https://t.co/Uw5FV33bpO" / Twitter
 
Zachary Petrizzo on Twitter: "White nationalist Nick Fuentes ..." / Twitter
White nationalist Nick Fuentes just told his followers on a video stream tonight to destroy their phones if they entered the Capitol building on January 6th.

After encouraging his followers to destroy their phones, Fuentes backtracked. “I'm gonna say don't do that, for my legal sake,” he stated.

Here is the full clip of Nick Fuentes telling his supporters to destroy their phones and SIM cards if they entered the Capitol building on January 6th -- and then backtracking.
Click to expand...
In short, try to hide their identity. But they didn't bother, and they gave themselves away.

Donna Imam on Twitter: "THIS: "unlike the insurrectionists, the 147 GOP Congress members were polite and proper about voting to overturn the election. But the danger they pose to our democracy is much greater than that posed by the members of the mob" — @zeynep (link to The Atlantic)" / Twitter
 
Josh Marshall on Twitter: "“Madame Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now ...” Rep Boebert just before storming of the Capitol. (link to video of her addressing Congress)" / Twitter

Shane Moynihan 🗽🧢 🍎 🦉 on Twitter: "Wow, Just realized this.
Our collective cognitive dissonance is something else. https://t.co/L1dEhziOZE" / Twitter
noting
David Waldman-1, of Yorktown LLC™ on Twitter: "The fact that the Capitol was overrun and sacked ..." / Twitter
The fact that the Capitol was overrun and sacked and there was no effort whatsoever to evacuate the president from DC to a secure, remote location tells you all you need to know about who launched and directed the attack.

No way that would ever happen otherwise.

It happened that way for the same reason Republicans weren’t alarmed—and threatened to attack President Obama if he raised the alarm—when they found out Russia was interfering in the 2016 elections.

They understood that both attacks were for their benefit.

Is this really the kind WH pool report you would expect to see during a violent siege that had already overwhelmed defenses at the Capitol, and threatened to assassinate the Vice President, if the President didn’t have some peculiar reason to believe he was immune from attack?
(No updates at the White House)

“You were leaving for one day and you packed a bag and made three phone calls. Santiago was leaving for the rest of his life, and he hadn't called a soul and he hadn't packed a thing. Can you explain that?”
Click to expand...
That's remarkable - Trump stayed put in the White House rather than leave for some secure area outside of DC.
 
lpetrich said:
That's remarkable - Trump stayed put in the White House rather than leave for some secure area outside of DC.
Click to expand...

Of course. He knew he wasn’t the target. These were the very people listening intently to him speak just a short time previous.

He clearly enjoyed watching them storm the Capitol even if he didn’t think he “ordered” it. His lack of action in response is even more damning, in my opinion, than any alleged incitement.

In the end the “trial” is at a legal one. The Senators won’t be deciding to convict based on evidence and logic. They will make a political decision. Hard to predict if 17 Senators will convict or not.
 
Resolution Seeks to Permanently Ban Trump from U.S. Capitol

H.Con.Res.6 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Directing the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives, the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate, and the United States Capitol Police to prohibit President Donald John Trump from entering the United States Capitol at any time after the expiration of his term as President. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Introduced by Rep. Nikema Williams, D-GA-05, on Jan 13

She was elected last year as the successor of Rep. John Lewis, a civil-rights activist who died last year. Seems like she's getting off to a good start. From its text:
The Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives, the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate, and the United States Capitol Police shall take such actions as may be necessary to prohibit President Donald John Trump from entering the United States Capitol at any time after the expiration of his term as President.
Click to expand...
No cosponsors yet.
 
lpetrich said:
Donald Trump will fly to Florida hours before Biden inauguration, reports say | Donald Trump | The Guardian - "Outgoing president expected to use Air Force One to travel to Mar-a-Lago, where he intends to live"
It is unclear what exactly Trump intends to do next. It seems inevitable he will spend some of the weeks and months ahead closeted with his lawyers – and, as per his presidency, on the golf course. He faces a second impeachment trial in the Senate and a slew of other legal cases, federal and civil. As an ex-president he loses his immunity from prosecution.

In Washington Trump’s staff are busy packing up. On Wednesday, a photographer for Reuters snapped the president’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, carrying a large, framed photograph of one of Trump’s meetings with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. Other items on their way out of the building included a stuffed pheasant and an Abraham Lincoln bust.

The removals and piles of boxes have prompted a rash of puns on Twitter, with several calling on the president to “stop the steal”.
Click to expand...


Ian Millhiser on Twitter: "So, and I'm not sure how to put this delicately, are any precautions being taken to ensure that Trump does not defect to an adversarial nation in return for a large payout?" / Twitter
I wouldn't be surprised if he does, Will he end up in a nice estate in a Moscow suburb?
Click to expand...

Something on the Black Sea would be more to his taste, surely.
I'm not sure Melania would accompany him back to that part of the world.
 
lpetrich said:
Deconstructed: Rep. Pramila Jayapal on the Capitol Riot - "The congresswoman has since tested positive for Covid-19 after being locked down with unmasked Republicans."

As the Capitol attackers advanced through the Congress building, she thought that the House chamber was safe. But then Nancy Pelosi was evacuated, and a fellow Congressmember showed her a picture of the holder of zip-tie handcuffs in the Senate chamber. She was sure that she had to go. She was up in the gallery, and a mob was outside of it trying to break through its door. Fortunately some cops arrived and caught those would-be assailants.
But there weren’t enough officers to escort them to safety, so they were told to remove the pins that identified them as members and make their way to a congressional hearing room through the tunnels. Jayapal and freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones, D.-N.Y., contemplated the decision: Leave the pin on, and be discovered by the mob. Take the pin off, and be attacked by police who might not realize they’re members of Congress. They left the pins on.
Click to expand...
Then she had to make it down some stairs while having a bad knee. A fellow Congressmember helped her, and then
They made it to the hearing room, and as Jayapal opened the door, it immediately dawned on her: She had tested negative for the coronavirus that morning. “I’m going to get Covid,” she forecast accurately.
Click to expand...

Michael Beschloss on Twitter: "Trump knows that if he leaves the Presidency, he might well face absolute legal and financial ruin. Thus even this late in the game, he may still go to extreme lengths to avoid giving up the mantle and immunity of Presidential power at noon on Wednesday." / Twitter
Click to expand...

As to extreme lengths, it appears that he's still flirting with martial law.
 
Pramila Jayapal on Twitter: "Trump still hasn't come out and said that Biden won the election. He STILL hasn't backed off his lies that incited the deadly attack on our Capitol and our country.

This is dangerous. It undermines our democracy. And it's one of the many reasons he needs to be removed NOW." / Twitter

Don Winslow on Twitter: "I was contacted by someone who I've confirmed works at The Capitol who told me the following:

Laura Boebert gave a “tour” on the 5th even though she’s denying it." / Twitter

carl lewis on Twitter: "@donwinslow From the Colorado Sun. Her mother posted the “detailed your” of the day before online, but deleted it later. https://t.co/EYtLeqcECd" / Twitter

Lauren Boebert vowed to shake things up in Congress. She has delivered in her first week. - "The high school dropout with a history of minor run-ins with the law used her first tumultuous week in office to cement her far-right and extremist credentials while also setting off a widespread roar of criticism"


RuthlessCallout on Twitter: "@VACatLady @donwinslow Booty shorts and guns. And here we are. Got a “Girls Gone Gun Wild” in DC. George Washington is rolling in his grave. https://t.co/3858nUKETU" / Twitter

Fippy Darkpaw on Twitter: "@donwinslow 99.9% sure her mom is "Bullhorn Lady", who DEFINITELY knew the layout. https://t.co/63JiMAAFIo" / Twitter

Julie Elizabeth Powell on Twitter: "@frackinfrell @donwinslow Nope not her. FBI just released new photos of the "pink hat" minis glasses. Not LB Mom. The girl is younger & thinner" / Twitter
 
Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 on Twitter: "No Capitol tours by me either, Brian." / Twitter

Chris Cillizza on Twitter: "Ben Sasse draws a line in the sand (links, including to The Atlantic)" / Twitter
The violence that Americans witnessed-and that might recur in the coming days-is not a protest gone awry or the work of "a few bad apples.' It is the blossoming of a rotten seed that took root in the Republican Party some time ago and has been nourished by treachery, poor political judgment, and cowardice. When Trump leaves office, my party faces a choice: We can dedicate ourselves to defending the Constitution and perpetuating our best American institutions and traditions, or we can be a party of conspiracy theories, cable-news fantasies, and the ruin that comes with them. We can be the party of Eisenhower, or the party of the conspiracist Alex Jones. We can applaud Officer Goodman or side with the mob he outwitted. We cannot do both.
Click to expand...
Ben Sasse is R-NE Senator

Richard Yeselson on Twitter: "Uh...the editor who didn’t ask Ben Saase to explain *in depth* why he groveled to Trump about most everything the past four years did a lousy job. And it wouid have been a more interesting essay too." / Twitter

Misinformation went down after Twitter banned Trump - The Washington Post - "Zignal Labs charts 73 percent decline on Twitter and beyond following historic action against the president"
Online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, research firm Zignal Labs has found, underscoring the power of tech companies to limit the falsehoods poisoning public debate when they act aggressively.
Click to expand...
 
My favorite Trump tweet: TTA - Search
Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election. In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!
Click to expand...
At Twitter: "This Tweet is from a suspended account."

I find it so funny that he thinks that that election was somehow about him.

I also like: TTA - Search
Like it or not, Tlaib and Omar are fast becoming the face of the Democrat Party. Cortez (AOC) is fuming, not happy about this!
Click to expand...
AOC responded with a tears-of-laughter emoji. Trump seems to have thought that AOC is just like him, a narcissistic egomaniac.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom