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January 6 Hearings Live

No, AOC Didn't Make Up Her Capitol Riots Experience - The New York Times
While Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was not in the main, domed Capitol building when the rioters breached it, she never said she was. She accurately described being in the Cannon House Office Building, which is part of the Capitol complex and is connected to the main building by tunnels.

In her livestream, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recalled hiding in a bathroom and thinking she was going to die as unknown people entered her office and shouted, “Where is she?” They turned out to be Capitol Police officers who had not clearly identified themselves, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said so on Instagram. She did not claim that they were rioters — only that, from her hiding spot, she initially thought they were.
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Which fits in with this during the attacks:
Emma Kinery on Twitter: "Sources tell me House staff has been told to evacuate the Cannon House Office Building and the Madison building" / Twitter

Emma Kinery on Twitter: ".@HouseInSession: Police and Capitol security officials have ordered evacuations of the Cannon House Office Building and the Madison Building -- part of the Library of Congress -- because of bomb threats to those buildings, according to an official who has been briefed" / Twitter
Others have corroborated Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s account and confirmed that the Cannon building was threatened, even though the rioters did not ultimately breach it.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The reason some GOP are trying to sow false doubt about accounts of the Capitol attack ..." / Twitter
The reason some GOP are trying to sow false doubt about accounts of the Capitol attack is bc they know how powerful the testimony really is.

Each story reveals more details + the need for accountability. You can see mine here: What Happened at the Capitol Instagram Live | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - YouTube

& others on CSPAN below ⬇️

They don’t want you to hear stories like @RepDeanPhillips, who yesterday spoke to his gut instinct to blend the floor w/GOP lawmakers bc he knew the mob was coming for Dems, & affirmed the stark reality that his colleagues of color didn’t have that luxury: (clip of him speaking)

Or @RashidaTlaib’s story of what her threats have looked like and how they’ve escalated from the moment she got to Washington, and how she feels responsible for the safety of her staff: (clip of her speaking)

Or @CoriBush’s powerful account of barricading in with her staff and the collective decision they made that if white supremacists breached their office, they had already come too far in the Movement for Black Lives to go down without a fight: (clip of her speaking)
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Tony Martin on Twitter: "@AOC @CoriBush AOC, don't forget to point out that the Democrats have been dealing with these death threats their entire time, but with FEAR of threat from Trump supporters, the GOP decided they were to afraid to stand up to him, because they're afraid for their families from own supporters!" / Twitter

Denise on Twitter: "@AOC @CoriBush My representative, Bruce Westerman, locked himself in a bathroom. Do you think the terrorists would have killed him before he could explain that he’s a Republican?" / Twitter
How many other Congresspeople and staffers hid in offices and conference rooms that day?

Slaybraham Drinkin on Twitter: "@AOC @RepDeanPhillips In all seriousness, have the FBI found anyone who wasn’t a trump supporter from Jan 6? Because these trumpets keep trying to say it wasn’t MAGA people. I already know the answer but maybe that should be a talking point" / Twitter


Democratic Lawmakers Give Emotional Testimony On Experiences Of Capitol Attack | HuffPost - sums up what they said. It has all the ones that I saw clips of.
 
More and more attackers tracked down.

Feds arrest woman accused of using bullhorn to direct rioters during Capitol siege - "Footage from the day of the attack appears to show Rachel Powell, dressed in a pink hat, using a battering ram to smash windows, officials said."

Woman accused of directing Capitol rioters with bullhorn arrested | TheHill - "The FBI identified Powell as a woman who was seen in viral social media and news footage blaring instructions to rioters who were breaching the Capitol building on January 6."

Suspect in Capitol riot arrested after relative told on him: FBI

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Man who wore horns in Capitol riot moved to Virginia jail that serves organic food

Capitol rioter 'QAnon Shaman' moved from DC jail to Virginia for organic diet | TheHill
 
Elixir said:
Okay - apparently 11 traitors turned their backs on the Trump Qaucus and voted to punish the wannabe assassin lady.
That's one more than voted to impeach Trump.

Adam Kinzinger
Nicole Malliotakis
John Katko
Fred Upton
Brian Fitzpatrick
Carlos Gimenez
Chris Jacobs
Young Kim
Maria Salazar
Chris Smith
Mario Díaz-Balar

Who is the Newbie to the Dark Side???
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I really sorta expected Liz Cheney to be on that list. Weird....
 
Guy who wanted to shoot Pelosi has to pay for his lawyer.

https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol...-accused-of-threatening-to-kill-nancy-pelosi/

He currently has a public defender, but the judge feels he has the means to afford one NOT on the taxpayer dime.
And as his current lawyer is going with the 'he was joking' defense, to account for the threats AND the truck full of weapons, that's probably in his interests.
 
Trump Defense Secretary Disarmed D.C. National Guard Before Capitol Riot - National Memo - Loren Pechtel's link with its title
Without my subsequent, personal authorization, the DCNG is not authorized the following:
  • To be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.
  • To interact physically with protestors, except when necessary in self-defense or defense of others, consistent with the DCNG Rules for the Use of Force.
  • To employ any riot control agents.
  • To share equipment with law enforcement agencies.
  • To use Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets or to conduct ISR or Incident, Awareness, and Assessment activities.
  • To employ helicopters or any other air assets.
  • To conduct searches, seizures, arrests, other similar law enforcement activity.
  • To seek support from any non-DCNG National Guard units.
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I watched some video of the House proceedings for Feb 4, like the speeches. MTG backed off from only some of her claims, and she bragged about how she believed that Jesus Christ died for her sins. Presumably meaning that she is totally off the hook for every bad thing that she has ever done. She also said that she thinks that abortion is "the worst thing this country has ever committed". She also grumbled about the demonstrations of last summer, and also said that the news media is as bad as QAnon.

Rep. Jim McGovern, head of the Rules Cmte, listed some of MTG's nasty remarks and actions from as recently as 2019.

Some of the Republicans who spoke seemed to think that it was not fair to punish MTG for things that she said before she was elected.
 
Back to C-SPAN. Rep. McGovern noted that MTG's "apology" is very limited, and does not cover the threats that she has made to certain Congresspeople.

The GOP Might Still Be Trump’s Party. But That Doesn’t Mean There’s Room For Him. | FiveThirtyEight
This lack of a clean break among Republicans with Trump — despite being the only president to be impeached twice — raises an important question about the future of the GOP: To what extent does it remain Trump’s party?

...
The thing is, Trump does represent an idea that has appealed to some of his party’s voters: politics based on grievance, especially when linked to white identity. Trump has emerged as a powerful leader to this movement, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, that the media and tech companies seek to silence voices on the right, and that institutions no longer work for “ordinary” (read: white) Americans. And while many establishment GOP members don’t agree with some of Trump’s more extreme words and actions, they have continued to defend him, or, at the very least, not really distance themselves from him. The upcoming impeachment trial and the fact that most GOP senators are likely to vote against his conviction speak to a long pattern left over from when Trump was still in office: criticize Trump’s actions, but ultimately don’t disavow him.
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In Marjorie Taylor Greene, a glimpse of the future | TheHill
While Biden has had a remarkably successful two weeks, Greene has, in effect, become a spokesperson for her party. A recent poll finds Greene with a plus 10 percentage-point favorability rating among Republicans, while Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who holds the third-highest position in the House GOP leadership and supported President Trump’s impeachment, has a minus 28 percent rating. Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president and spokesperson for establishment conservatives, suddenly finds herself a minority within a minority while Greene dominates cable news.
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The author then argued that House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is a weak leader, unlike Nancy Pelosi, someone like Sam Rayburn.

Republicans worry Greene could be drag on party in suburbs | TheHill
 
Cori Bush: Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't take back what she said about me | TheHill
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) on Thursday acknowledged that while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) apologized to congressional colleagues this week over her past controversial statements, Greene didn't take back or regret claims directed at Bush.

During an interview that aired Thursday evening on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” Bush said she has committed to “call out” Greene for past remarks that have surfaced in recent days, suggesting that Greene “needs to be exposed” in order for the GOP congresswoman to “evolve or be reformed.”

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Bush claimed last month that Greene and her staff berated her in a hallway and also pointed to a tweet on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in which Greene accused Bush of leading a mob that called for “the rape, murder, and burning of the home” of the McCloskey family in St. Louis.

Bush told Noah on Thursday that Greene, “called me a terrorist, she said I was the leader of a terrorist mob ... that I called for the murder of a couple.”

“She didn’t take that back, she didn’t regret that,” Bush continued. “That’s the kind of stuff that’s dangerous for our communities, and so that has to be called out.”
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After noting that she has decided to move her office away from MTG's,
“Greene came up from behind me, ranting loudly into her phone while not wearing a mask.”

"Out of concern for the health of my staff, other members of Congress, and their congressional staff, I repeatedly called out to her to put on a mask,” Bush said in a statement. “Taylor Greene and her staff responded by berating me, with one staffer yelling, ‘Stop inciting violence with Black Lives Matter.’"

In the statement, Bush added, “In the context of Taylor Greene’s repeated endorsements of executing Democratic politicians before taking office, Taylor Greene’s renewed, repeated antagonization of the movement for Black lives in the last month directed towards me personally is cause for serious concern.”

"All of this led to my decision to move my office away from Taylor Greene’s for the safety of my team,” Bush added.
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MTG is nasty. Kicking her off committees is not strong enough. She should be expelled.
 
CNN hosts Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon defend AOC's Capitol riot claim, bash critics of her account | Fox News
CNN hosts Lemon and Cuomo, who regularly go off-script during their nightly handoff, vehemently sided with Ocasio-Cortez.

"I don’t understand how this is a story. How is she supposed to know who was on the other side of the door? How is she supposed to know how many people were on the other side of the door? This has nothing to do with anything AOC or whatever, but I kept trying to figure out how the people that were actually involved in that siege, and all the chaos, could be criticizing someone else who was involved in it," Lemon said.

"She was explaining how, what she thought was going on in her particular situation."

Lemon called criticism "flat-out partisanship and a distraction to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has dominated CNN’s coverage as the network seeks a new villain with President Trump out of office.

"They’re going after one of the Democrats because the Democrats are going after one of theirs," Cuomo added, claiming conservatives want to "frame the Democrats" for the tragic Capitol riot.

"It’s all B.S.," Cuomo said, noting that he has been in a similar situation to Ocasio-Cortez.

"I lived a situation like that and it doesn’t have to be real, the threat, for you to believe it’s imminent," Cuomo said as Lemon added, "It’s what you believe."
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AOC is an asset for Democrats, Greene is an albatross for the GOP | TheHill - Brad Bannon's opinion column
American politics would be a lot better off if we had a lot more of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y,) and a lot less of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Ocasio-Cortez is an asset for Democrats, while Greene is an albatross for Republicans.

...
While Greene favors fiction, Ocasio-Cortez’s fight against the perils of climate change is rooted in science. The problems that Greene brings to the GOP table have been well-documented. She is a follower of QAnon, a group while believes in conspiracy theories about liberals which would be laughable if they weren’t so scary.

...
Now, is the time for the Democratic congressional leadership to embrace Ocasio-Cortez. If they have any doubts about the value that she brings to the Democratic Party, all they need to do is take a long hard look at the menace that Greene poses to the GOP.
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Back to C-SPAN. Rep. McGovern slammed QAnon as a violent, dangerous conspiracy theory. A theory that many of the 1/6 Capitol attackers subscribed to. The party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan has become the party of MTG, he said.

Then the vote for H.Res.91.
 
Trump impeachment lawyer says he'll use video of Dems' own remarks at trial - POLITICO

Laura Ingraham interviewed Bruce Castor.
“Will you then respond with Maxine Waters, a number of other Democrat officials not speaking out about the Antifa and other extremist rallies over the last summer?” Ingraham asked.

“I think you can count on that,” Castor said. “If my eyes look a little red to the viewers, it's because I've been looking at a lot of video.”

Earlier in the segment with Ingraham, Castor alleged “there’s a lot of tape of cities burning and courthouses being attacked and federal agents being assaulted by rioters in the streets, cheered on by Democrats throughout the country,” seemingly referring to ongoing unrest in Portland, Ore.
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Trump’s allies fear the impeachment trial could be a PR nightmare - POLITICO
The ex-president's boosters fear major reputational damage if next week’s hearings focus on the violence of Jan. 6 and not narrow questions about the Constitution.

...
The former president, whom House Democrats have accused of inciting the rioters at a rally earlier the same day, is already hemorrhaging support within the GOP. Recent public polls have shown a sharp decline in support among Republican voters for a potential Trump comeback bid in 2024. And a widely televised trial that reminds voters and lawmakers of the disturbing moments when MAGA devotees assaulted law enforcement officials and broke into the Capitol building could harm his future political aspirations even more.

“The Democrats have a very emotional and compelling case,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “They’re going to try to convict him in the eyes of the American people and smear him forever.”
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Smear him? It's the ugly truth.
The concern among Trump’s allies that the trial will be a relitigation of the events at the Capitol underscores the degree to which next week is being viewed as a public relations matter for the optics-obsessed former president. It was notable on Thursday that in a letter dismissing the House impeachment managers’ calls for Trump to testify at the trial, the ex-president’s lawyers decried the request as a “public relations stunt.”
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Trump seems devoid of anything resembling a conscience or a sense of responsibility.
 
lpetrich said:
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Some of the Republicans who spoke seemed to think that it was not fair to punish MTG for things that she said before she was elected.
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It has nothing to do with punishing her. She belongs in an asylum.
 
Back to C-SPAN. A vote on ordering H.Res.91, then a vote on H.Res.91 itself. Two votes before the main event. I find it interesting to find out which Reps have designated which other Reps as proxies.

Like Katherine Clark: Grace Meng, Mr. Lynch, Pramila Jayapal, Ms. Frankel, Mr. Cooper, Jamaal Bowman

Here’s What Happens to a Conspiracy-Driven Party - POLITICO
Something much like QAnon was present in US politics some 170 years ago. Back then was the Native American Party, later the American Party, a party that got nicknamed the Know-Nothings from its members being secretive about their party.

Tt was one of several parties that competed in the gap left behind by the disintegration of the Whig Party.
Much like QAnon, the Know Nothings started life as a secretive cabal convinced that the country was being controlled by an even more secretive cabal — and much like Trump-era Republicans, their anxieties were rooted in a country that seemed to be changing around them.

In the late 1840s, the United States was being flooded with immigrants, in this case from Ireland. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of poor Irish Catholics led to a rise of political groups in New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia convinced that these immigrants could form a fifth column taking direction from the Pope. Under orders from Rome, the theory went, these immigrants would undo American democracy and steal jobs from hard-working native citizens whose economic prospects were hardly secure even in the best of times.

Given that there were both Northern and Southern contingents, the Know Nothing movement avoided the issue of slavery, instead directing the passions of its supporters toward laws against drinking (the Irish were seen as overly fond of drink; they were Catholics; they were in thrall to the Pope; hence alcohol was evil); laws against immigration; laws in cities such as Chicago banning any new immigrants from municipal jobs; laws to prevent immigrants from attaining citizenship.
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They were prominent in Congress and state governments, dominating MA, PA, RI, ME, and CA for a little bit.
Most of them supported stringent nativist, anti-immigrant legislation; all emerged from conspiratorial clubs that had spread theories about possible Papist aggression and plots against the sovereignty of the United States. (In their grotesque accusations about Catholic priests and nuns strangling babies and holding young women against their will, it’s not hard to see an early version of QAnon’s core obsession with imagined globalist pedophiles.)
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The party fell as fast as it rose, breaking apart into a lot of small groups. Slavery split the Know-Nothings as it split the Whigs. Much of its bigotry survived it, however, and some of the northern Know-Nothings joined a new northern party, the Republicans.
 
C-SPAN: about HRes 91, "Providing for consideration of the Resolution (H. Res. 72) removing a certain Member from certain standing committees of the House of Representatives."
Vote #22: on ordering the previous question: Y 218 N 209 - passed
Vote #23: on agreeing to the resolution: Y 218 N 210 - passed, will go ahead with vote on HRes 72
Vote #24: On motion to adjourn: Y 205 N 218 - failed, will continue business

Politico again:
Trump reached office by loudly giving voice to undercurrents that the Republican Party had largely kept in check, and had he been re-elected, it’s of course possible that his long grip on power would have led to a more potent national movement. But even then, he never truly managed to deliver results, or to bend the government to his loose collection of ideas; a faction with one primary ethos subsumed to one primary leader could only have been viable long-term if Trump had actually managed to deconstruct the government systems in a way that he largely failed to do.
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The Trump Admin nevertheless made a big mess.
Without that kind of success to build a broader base, the QAnon wing now threatens to push Republicans much closer to the fate of Know Nothing Party, even though they don’t know it.

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That doesn’t mean that all GOP voters buy into all of that — not even close. But it means that the party itself will struggle to survive as an organizing force without that energy, and will be limited as a national party because of it. That limit is the lesson of the Know Nothings.
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Congresswoman Left for Dead at Jonestown Recalls the Massacre, 37 Years Later - Roll Call - back in 2019
Rep. Jackie Speier knows exactly how it feels to be left for dead.

On Nov. 18, 1978, she was shot five times on a remote airstrip in Guyana, South America. Her boss, Rep. Leo J. Ryan and four others lay dead nearby, killed by gunfire as they tried to escape Jonestown, the commune built by cult leader Jim Jones.

Nearly 40 years later, Speier still remembers why she decided to get on a plane to go down on the ill-fated congressional trip.

“Back in 1978, there were not many women in high-ranking positions in Congress,” said Speier, who was legislative counsel for Ryan at the time. “I felt if I didn’t go, it would be a step back for women holding these high positions. I thought, ‘I can’t not go.’”

So she went, accompanying Ryan and 23 other people to Guyana, on the northeastern coast of South America, attempting to visit Jim Jones and nearly 1,000 followers he’d amassed.

By the end of the trip, Ryan was dead — the first and only congressman to be assassinated in office — along with three journalists and one cult defector. Speier and nine others had been shot and left for dead at a remote airstrip; they waited 22 hours for help to arrive.

Immediately following the shootings, Jones and more than 900 of his followers died from self-inflicted cyanide poisoning in what was seen as a mass suicide at the time, but is now widely considered a mass murder.

The Ryan congressional delegation had no military escort. The State Department had given neither a warning nor protection.
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"I Was Fearful We Were Going To Lose Our Lives" - Rep. Speier On Surviving The Insurrection - YouTube
She recalled the Speaker being escorted out, then some other House leaders. A Capitol Police officer announced that the Capitol was breached.

She was in the gallery, and she was told to open a package that was beneath the seats. It contained a gas mask. She heard some pounding on a door, then saw Capitol Police barricade it with some furniture. She heard a gunshot as she was down on the floor. It brought back memories - she was fearful that she and fellow Congressmembers would soon lose their lives.

"We're Supposed To Forget We Almost Lost Democracy?" - Rep. Jackie Speier - YouTube
Stephen Colbert asked her about parallels. She wrote a book about her experiences with Jim Jones and his People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. She then went on a book tour, and the first or second thing she was asked about is possible parallels between Jim Jones and Donald Trump. She recoiled at first -- Trump didn't order his followers to commit suicide, no matter what other odious things he did. Then the Capitol attack, where Trump told his "Stop the Steal" rallygoers to go to the Capitol and fight. She said that we came very close to losing our democracy on that day.
 
Now are you alarmed by the intrusions of religion into our secular government? | Annie Laurie Gaylor
Speier wrote a book two years ago, Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back, about that fateful trip. She soon realized they had descended into a tinderbox. When they hurriedly left the enclave, taking with them some would-be escapees, they were followed and shot. Ryan was killed, along with four others in their party, on the airstrip as they started to board their planes. Speier and nine others were also shot and left for dead, waiting almost a day for help. Meanwhile, Jones was overseeing the horrifying murder/mass suicide of more than 900 of his followers. Shot five times, including in the back, Speier spent two months in the hospital and underwent 10 surgeries, also requiring around-the-clock protection from U.S. marshals due to continued threats on her life.

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When asked about impeachment, Speier said Trump’s role cannot be brushed away: “This was an act by the president of the United States to incite an insurrection. We’re supposed to forget that we almost lost a democracy two weeks after the fact?”
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Then Rep. Jamie Raskin, who had to go into hiding on that awful day. But while in hiding, he started work on articles of impeachment. “I am not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021.”
 
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