sedition insurrection coup Jan 6 1

devil term 1219

merri ok

html prosecutorial

SEE 2 BAK 1/21

SEE BIG LIE

see sedition caucus

trace morph to Wild Time ? aha patriot is god term hijacked by JBS anti-commie (none dare call it treason) then TP then trumpista/qanon, any enemy is traitor; BUT confed flag b/c rebel against tyranny by gubmint (any restriction, including mask in pandemic emergency 300K plus KIA)

see traitor

see coup/ assassination

right throws this term around pretty casually, but if can make the name stick?!

disambig 9/20 on barr; sedition, insurrection "soft" coup; it is both a god-term devil term metaphor and a real thing/ legal charge; could the application or either or both authorize use of force? less than lethal?

qanon map has 3 buckets, evil,traitor and __

html hillsdale

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an 1 24

in the wake of the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which a mob of far-right rioters attempted to violently disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College count, numerous corporations vowed publicly to stop donating to Republicans who supported the rioters' cause.

However, a new report from nonpartisan campaign finance research group Open Secrets shows that corporations have been flooding the campaign war chests of Republican election deniers in Congress, with more than $108 million donated since the insurrection.

"Companies pledged to pull back, but we have not seen that play out," Open Secrets investigations manager Anna Massoglia recently told the New York Times.

To come to that amount, Open Secrets tracked donations to the campaigns of the 147 House and Senate Republicans (also known as the "Sedition Caucus") who voted to overturn the 2020 election the same day supporters of former President Donald Trump ransacked the US Capitol, killing five police officers and injuring hundreds more in the process. Researchers then zeroed in on donations that came from approximately 1,400 business political action committees and trade associations.

According to Open Secrets, PACs and trade groups donated roughly $91.4 million to the Sedition Caucus in the three years since the insurrection, and funded leadership PACs affiliated with Sedition Caucus members to the tune of $16.7 million more. Some of the biggest donors include the National Association of Realtors — a trade group for the real estate industry — the American Bankers Association and United Parcel Service. Other major corporate donors to election deniers include military contractors like Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and General Atomics.

Notably, many of these donations came from the very same companies that pledged to stop supporting the Sedition Caucus. As journalist Judd Legum reported in his newsletter Popular Information, household name brands like Airbnb, Amazon, AT&T, Boeing and Pfizer publicly vowed to cut off donations to election deniers in 2021. However, Open Secrets found that all of those companies quietly resumed donations, in addition to other companies that pledged to stop supporting 2020 election conspiracy theorists like Comcast, Deloitte, General Motors, Home Depot, Marathon Petroleum, Raytheon and SpaceX, among others.

"Support for these organizations does not represent an endorsement for all issues that the organization supports," General Motors said of a 2021 donation to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which signed a statement in support of election denialism.

Click here to read Open Secrets' full report.

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caucus

https://gizmodo.com/the-big-oil-money-behind-the-members-of-congress-who-fu-1846020442

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coup started as metaphor, "soft" but flynn went there 621:

Donie O'Sullivan is a reporter for CNN. His beat appears to be American conspiracy theories. He was on Anderson Cooper's show last night with reporting on a QAnon conference last weekend during which former Donald Trump adviser and pardoned traitor Michael Flynn said a Myanmar-style military coup "should happen" in America.

That some people in this country long for purifying violence to "reinstate" Donald Trump to his "rightful place" is not what got my attention, though. What did was Donie O'Sullivan's editorial remark at the end of his report. This is what he said:

I spend a lot of time reading these pro-Trump forums, reading these QAnon forums online, and speaking to Trump supporters, and I will say of all the conspiracy theories we hear, this talk from Americans about a coup, cheering a coup, and hoping for a coup, in the United States is one of the most chilling things I hear.

Before I go on, I should say O'Sullivan appears to be an immigrant. (I think he's Irish, given his accent.) As such, I don't expect him to be as attuned to American political culture as I'd expect a native-born American to be. Indeed, as a non-native, I'd expect him to be more attuned to the American civic religion than native-born Americans generally are, because fealty to the civic religion is so often demanded of immigrants.

This civic religion believes military coups and their consequent dictatorships cannot happen in the United States.Ordinary Americans do not want them, moreover, because it would be against their civic religion. You can't quite tell from the written version of his remark, but when you watch the clip, you can hear O'Sullivan put a little more stress on "American" when he says he's chilled to hear Americans, of all people on this earth, talking "about a coup, cheering a coup, and hoping for a coup, in the United States." Implicit point: this is what Trump has done to the globe's oldest democracy.

I suspect some of O'Sullivan's remark was showmanship. (He does work for CNN, after all.) But I think some of it, maybe most of it, reflects the conventional wisdom in Washington—that it's shocking to hear Americans talk this way. It's not shocking, though. It's familiar and quite normal when you know where to look.Fact is, lots of Americans believe they are God's chosen people. They believe the end of the world is coming, according to God's divine plan. They believe the US Constitution is a covenant with them only, and that a genocidal purge will preface Christ's return.

This is the End Times I'm talking about, a story about global events culminating ic that "reinstates" the King of Kings to his rightful place. It's a story millions of Americans tell themselves and their children. It's a story in which the messy and hard-to-understand world around us is no such thing.Instead, it is polarized as conflict between God's friends and God's enemies. The only difficulty is decoding the signs and symbols God lays out. Reality isn't real. Reality is a sinful illusion. What's real is the trail of secrets leading the chosen safely to The End. Argument, language, reasoning—they don't matter. Only they can know The Truth.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that religion is off-limits. Therefore, the conventional wisdom in Washington does not see, because it will not see, that tens of millions of Americans already believe democracy is getting in the way of God's plan,that democracy is—and I mean this seriously—desecrating the sacredness of the US Constitution. As one critic put it, the Venn diagram showing the overlap of QAnon believers and white evangelical Protestants (and related groups) is actually a circle. When you stand with God against His enemies, you have God's permission to hate.

That's their religion. No, it's not a cult. It's more than that. It's deeper than that. The hate felt by the former president's supporters during four years' worth of political rallies is the same hate for America as it stands, not as they desire it to stand, that right-wing religious radicals have felt since post-Civil War America. That's when Charles Darwin's theories and what they determined about humanity's place in God's divine scheme first gained traction in the United States.Every single intellectual development—from evolution then to Critical Race Theory now—has been met with such hate. I don't understand why the conventional wisdom looks away from history.

Because it's easier, I guess. It's easier to maintain the myth of the civic religion; to be shocked by Americans talking about a military coup; to blame the former president for imperiling the world's oldest democracy. It's easier to respect religion without scrutinizing it too much, and risk discovering it's steeped in hate, which might force the conventional wisdom in Washington to take responsibility. On this one-year anniversary since Trump gassed Americans out of the way for a photo-op of him holding a Bible in front of a church, we need the truth. And that's never been easy.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/right-wing-violence/

...We had seen this building over the past year, though. If you go back to January 2020, in Richmond, Virginia, 20,000 armed people showed up at the state House there. In the spring, there were protests that were armed in Michigan at the state House, including one in which people stormed the building and intimidated legislators with weapons, with AR-15 assault rifles. We saw the Idaho state House get stormed. We saw the Oregon state House get stormed. We saw, in Olympia, Washington, by the Capitol there, there were shootings in the street two weeks in a row. Two people were shot, one each week. And so, this had been building for a long time.

I personally was at an armed rally at the Virginia state House a couple months ago, where about 50 men with weapons showed up and basically dared the police to arrest them, because they were in violation of the law. So, this was something that had been coming for a long time. And if you looked at the rhetoric online and you looked at what had been said by members of these groups for a long time, it was all about revolution, it was all about death to tyrants, it was all about civil war, for a long time.

On the day of the event, we saw militia groups like the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers, who were playing a big role. We saw the conspiracy theorists, like the QAnon people, who were there. We saw, I think, a significant role played by the Proud Boys, who you could call an ultranationalist street-fighting gang or group. And I think we saw a lot of military vets and some current military there. And there were also people who belong to straight-up white supremacist or white nationalist groups.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Virginia. We reported earlier this week that two of the rioters were off-duty Virginia police. And this goes to the issue of police and military from all over the country. You know, people were saying, "Where were the police?" Well, they were part of the riot, the insurrection, a number of them. You have police from Seattle, apparently New York, Philadelphia transit officers, a number of them, two Virginia officers. Now, this is just people who were identified. Can you talk about the — a PSYOPS guy, a military psychological operations. Can you talk about the significance of this?

A.C. THOMPSON: You know, I think there is a big concern that what we've seen in recent years is a lot of members of police departments, or at least some members of police departments, being radicalized in this right-wing direction. And in part, I think, what that's been a product of is they've seen the rise of the racial justice movements and police accountability movements, and they say, "I feel under attack. The person who's sticking up for us is Donald Trump, who's super law and order, and so I'm going to get deep into the Donald Trump world." And I think that's part of what's happened.

What's happening now, though, is different. And what's happening now is, when I was in D.C. at "Stop the Steal" protests and other protests in recent months, you would see the right-wing protesters did not want to fight with the police. They would say, "We're the law-and-order people. We're the pro-police people. We're not going to fight with the police. We want to fight with the police, but we're going to back off." That has changed. That has pivoted. And now what you're seeing in the chatter amongst the right-wing groups is, "We are at war with the police. The police are in bed with the reds. The police are a tool of this socialist takeover, which we believe magically is happening, without any facts. We believe that the police are subverting democracy. And we are now going after the police." And that's what you saw at the Capitol.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let's talk about the lack of preparation at the Capitol. You see these police officers, the Capitol Police, some help by the Metropolitan Police, fending for themselves. And we got the reports this week of the level of threat assessment reports that would come before each Black Lives Matter protest. Nothing like that was issued now, and yet you have this coming together of all of these people from — and if you can explain what the terrorist watch list is? It's not a no-fly list. And for many progressives, they may be very concerned about who makes up this list, but the fact is, scores of people on the FBI's own list had gathered, and yet the FBI issued no reports, and there was so little preparation. We saw African American Capitol police essentially running for their lives, saying they didn't have the support from the top, and they were being chased by the mob.

...

AMY GOODMAN: The Washington Post reported earlier this week the FBI explicitly warned of violence and "war" at the U.S. Capitol in an internal report issued one day before last Wednesday's deadly invasion. The report cited online posts, including one which said, quote, "Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die."

So, A.C. Thompson, I mean, how much more explicit can you get? And, I mean, we're not only talking about let's do a postmortem on last week's event — and "postmortem" is the right word. I mean, you're talking about a number of people dead: two police officers — the Capitol Hill police officer, Sicknick, who died, and then one who took his own life — and then you have three people who died in medical emergencies, apparently. But we're not only talking about the past; we're talking about whether this is prologue to this weekend. I mean, Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King's federal birthday, which is official — his birthday was today. But for years, white supremacists marched on state capitols to prevent it from being recognized as a national holiday. And then, of course, Wednesday, the inauguration.

A.C. THOMPSON: Yeah, I think I don't want to be alarmist, and I don't want to be the person who says the sky is falling, but I do think we have to be vigilant. I think we have to be looking forward. I think we have to be very, very careful in the months ahead. And this is why.

We were out on the campaign trail filming for Frontline at Trump rallies and at Trump speeches. And when we'd meet people, they would all say, "The only way the president is going to lose the election is if there's massive fraud, and it'll be probably massive fraud orchestrated by those nefarious globalists." There are millions of people who believe, because of Trump's incessant false messaging, that the election was fraudulent, that the election was stolen from him. And if you have just a very small percentage of those millions of people who are inclined to take violent action because they believe that we are on the cusp of a massively undemocratic transition of power, built around fraud, of course some of those people are likely to take very violent action to save, in their mind — you know, in their minds, to save this republic.

And that is the thing we must be concerned about. In America, it does not take very much money and very much skill to create a mass casualty event with a bomb or a gun. And that is something we're going to have to be very vigilant about, while at the same time ensuring that people have a right to protest, that people have a right to express themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: I'm wondering if you can talk about the alliances between all of these groups and current sitting members of Congress. You've got Utah Republican Congressmember John Curtis, who showed reporters a death threat left on his door on Thursday, a poster with skulls and crossbones pasted over his eyes, and the caption, "Wanted for treason! For resisting the true electoral victor Trump." Now, here is a congressman who, of course, was voicing concern about the fact that Republicans were not accepting the election of Joe Biden, but you've got other ones who led the charge about doing this. Can you talk about whether — the congressmembers and what should happen to them now? Even in President Trump's latest video, he will not acknowledge this election of Joe Biden. And does it actually encourage the violence, the fact that he's not showing up for the inauguration? Many may be deeply relieved that Trump won't be there, but does that send a message it's OK to target?

A.C. THOMPSON: I think there's a couple things going on here. And the first thing is that we have not acknowledged the scale of threats, intimidation and violence against public leaders that's occurred over the past year.We have so many public health officials in this country, at county and state levels, who have been threatened — at federal levels, as well — been threatened, who have been terrorized, who have had to get extra security, who have been doing their jobs and are in fear for their lives. And we, basically, as a society, have not grappled with that.

Now we've got elections officials, Republican and Democrat, who are dealing with that. We've got members of Congress who are dealing with that. We've got law enforcement leaders who are dealing with that. You know, in California, we had two law enforcement officials who were shot by an extremist group, allegedly, during the spring. Somebody is now facing federal charges for that. So I think there's been a —

AMY GOODMAN: Boogaloo bois.

A.C. THOMPSON: Yeah, the boogaloo bois, exactly. So I think there's been a level of violence and aggression towards public officials and government leaders that we have not seen in decades. And I don't think we've reckoned with that at all. It's a scary time to be a public leader.

Now, when you're talking about Congress, this is a thing that we're going to have to understand deeply, and we're going to need serious, serious investigations about what was the role of sympathetic members of Congress in possibly fomenting or even enabling this insurrection, because I don't think we've gotten to the bottom of that. We've heard names thrown out as potential members of Congress, from Arizona and Alabama, who may have aided and abetted these groups, but we don't know yet. I think that's a very concerning thing, as well. We also —...

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an 121

"Kill him with his own gun': These officers reveal the horror of facing the pro-Trump mob at the Capitol

Alex Henderson

Michael Fanone, a member of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, was among the people who feared for his life when a violent mob stormed the U.S. C...

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aha-ish: it was gathering of tribes, via and b/c of soc med, vax, qanon, trumpistas, boogaloo...

alt rt keeps trying to make online manifest IRL [LARP] "back to our parents' basements" post-gamergate // magical thinking? recall GRU organized opposing groups online to clash IRL

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/boogaloo-boys/

alex h

Following the violent January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building, national security experts are pointing to the Boogaloo Bois as one of the extremist groups that law enforcement will need to keep a close eye on in the months ahead. Dallas-based journalist Michael J. Mooney examines Boogaloo's goals in an article published by The Atlantic this week, stressing that although they didn't have a "huge presence" in that attack, they have been inspired by it.

"The riot at the Capitol last Wednesday featuredpartisans of the long-gone country of South Vietnam, Falun Gongadherents, end-times Christians, neo-Nazis, QAnon believers, a handful of Orthodox Jews, and Daniel Boone impersonators," Mooney writes. "The Boogaloos weren't a huge presence in that mob. But according to federal officials, the attack on the Capitol has galvanized them and could inspire Boogaloo violence in D.C. and around the country between now and Inauguration Day."

Most of the far-right insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol Building were devotees of President Donald Trump and were hoping to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College victory of President-elect Joe Biden. But according to Mooney, "The Boogaloos don't appear interested in fighting for Donald Trump — they tend to despise him, mostly because they think he panders to the police. But for the past year, Boogaloo Bois all over the United States have been cheering on the country's breakdown, waiting for the moment when their nihilistic memes would come to life and the country would devolve into bloody chaos."

Many liberal and progressive activists, contrary to what right-wing media often claim, have stressed that they are not anti-police — that they want to reform law enforcement, not abolish it. But at Mooney points out, the Boogaloo Bois have expressed a visceral hatred of law enforcement in general.

"Some are likely just joking when they 'shit-post' about shooting cops or 'yeeting alphabet boys' — killing government law-enforcement agents," Mooney explains. "But others seem serious. They've already shown up heavily armed — and in their signature Hawaiian shirts — at protests and at state capitols. They've allegedly killed law-enforcement officers, talked about throwing Molotov cocktails at cops during the racial-justice protests this summer, and plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. They say they want a total reset of society, even if they haven't thought very hard about what, exactly, should come next."

The Boogaloo Bois have made it clear that they want a civil war, and Mooney notes that he has "spent the past few months trying to figure" exactly why they want one. For his article, Mooney interviewed JJ MacNab, a fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University

According to MacNab, "They really want to create their own in-world so the rest of us won't get their jokes. It's tribal. These are tribal markings: the shirts they wear, the jargon they speak, even the types of guns they like."

But Mooney writes that even though Boogaloo's beliefs are nebulous and seem incoherent at times, that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous.

"Watching hordes of armed people storming the doors of Congress, facing off with any cop who offered resistance, killing a Capitol Police officer, and chasing another through the halls of a government building, I couldn't help thinking: These are the fantasies that Boogaloo Bois have been posting about for months," Mooney writes. "The riot may have captured their imagination."

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an 121

Although Twitter and Facebook have been cracking down on some far-right users, extremists have found other ways to communicate — including the smartphone app Zello, which according to the Guardian, was useful to some far-right militia members during the siege of the U.S. Capitol Building last week.

"Zello has avoided proactive content moderation thus far," Guardian reporters Micah Loewinger and Hampton Stall explain. "Most coverage about Zello, which claims to have 150 million users on its free and premium platforms, has focused on its use by the Cajun Navy groups that send boats to save flood victims and grassroots organizing in Venezuela. However, the app is also home to hundreds of far-right channels, which appear to violate its policy prohibiting groups that espouse 'violent ideologies.'"

Loewinger and Stall report that one member of the mob "narrated her march toward and into the Capitol" while others on a Zello channel "cheered on the insurrection and called for the kidnapping of politicians." And the creator of that channel, who went by "1% Watchdog," said, "You are executing citizen's arrest. We have probable cause: treason, acts of treason, election fraud, all kinds of felony crimes, no competent authority."

It was also on Zello that a female voice, the day of the Capitol invasion, was heard saying, "We have a good group: 30 to 40 of us. We're sticking together and sticking to the plan. The police are doing nothing. They're not even trying to stop us."

The report also recounts the following exchange describing the tumult inside the building:

"We are in the main dome right now," said a female militia member, speaking on Zello, her voice competing with the cacophony of a clash with Capitol police. "We are rocking it. They're throwing grenades, they're frickin' shooting people with paintballs, but we're in here."

"God bless and godspeed. Keep going," said a male voice from a quiet environment.

"Jess, do your shit," said another. "This is what we fucking lived up for. Everything we fucking trained for."

Zello, Loewinger and Stall note, has banned the Boogaloo Bois (a far-right extremist group that promotes civil war) and some racist groups from its platform — although the company may need to become more proactive if it wants to avoid the problems that Parler has recently experienced.

"Being slow to respond may threaten the future of Zello, which relies on servers from Amazon Web Services and access to the Google and Apple app stores," Loewinger and Stall explain. "By booting Parler from their platforms, the three companies have demonstrated they may not tolerate companies hosting extremist content. So far, that's not true of Zello."

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an 121

trump was 'pleased' by Capitol Siege — until realizing he had 'legal exposure': NYT reporter

Alex Henderson

The New York Times' Maggie Haberman has been reporting extensively on the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol Building and President Donald Trump's response to it. Haberman discussed her reporting during a January 12 appearance on CNN's "New Day," telling hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman that Trump was initially "pleased" with what we he saw on television.

The Times reporter told Cameron...

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/right-wing-media-2649880889

...Media Matters has a good round-up of the various strategies being employed by right wing media to spin Wednesday's events as something less serious than an attempted coup spurred on by Trump himself.

:{:{}:

Fox News' Tucker Carlson is reframing the insurrectionistsas the real victims, subject to imaginary liberal incursions on vaguely defined "freedom." Laura Ingraham is working the "both sides do it" angle, falsely equating random and disorganized acts of vandalism during Black Lives Matter protests with the Trump crowd's direct attempt to overthrow the U.S. government and likely murder congressional leaders.

Sean Hannity is still working the "antifa did it!" lie,even after the FBI announced no evidence linking anti-fascist activists to the Trump-motivated mob. And Rush Limbaugh is denying that the insurrection was violent, saying it was simply people taking "selfies," ignoring the fact that five people died, including a Capitol police officer who was beat to death by someone wielding a fire extinguisher. These tactics of deflection also ignore that the mob clearly intended more mayhem— rioters weren't carrying weapons and wearing armor for their health — and it was only a matter of luck that things didn't get worse.

Unfortunately, such right-wing media pressure campaigns have worked, going back at least to the 1990s, when a campaign by figures like Rush Limbaugh to downplay Timothy McVeigh's 1995 terrorist attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City effectively shut down needed discourse about the role that extremist rhetoric on the right played in the attack.

Similarly, feigned outrage on the right over an FBI reportin 2009 over the threat of domestic terrorism from returning veterans caused the Obama administration to buckle, withdrawing the report. Since then, there's been an air of heightened skepticism in mainstream media towards efforts by progressive activists to highlight the growing threat of domestic terrorism. Mainstream journalists have tended, all too often, to treat those warnings as hysterical, even in the face of terrorist attacks in El Paso and Pittsburgh.

Right-wing efforts to minimize right-wing violence can work, so Democrats need to act swiftly to take control of the narrative. Republicans must not be allowed to rewrite history to minimize the seriousness of this situation. And the best possible tool that Democrats have right now to evade right-wing gaslighting is impeachment.

The good news is that Democrats seem to understand this. After giving Vice President Mike Pence the whole weekend to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office, House Democrats announced that they would be introducing an article of impeachment on Monday, accusing Trump of "incitement of insurrection." Still, there still seems to be some desire on the part of House Democrats to give Pence another 24 hours, leading to a confusing timeline where the impeachment is likely not to be brought to the floor until Tuesday....

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shillenberger says antler guy a paid green protestor, his pal

Marc Morano—who has been the Republican-called expert witness at several Congressional hearings and forums on climate change, and whose climate denial documentary was recently promoted by President Donald Trump—called for similarly violent actions at state Capitols across the country.

“Striking fear in politicians is not a bad thing,” Morano wrote, adding that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

he goes on to say we need (armed) protested aganist covid lockdowns at state capitols?

Here’s his full Twitter thread: from heated podcast/drilled

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/jan-6-capitol-timeline/

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol-riot-2649876092/

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/hate-groups

Members of the ultranationalist street gang known as the Proud Boys were easy to spot at the protests that flared across the United States throughout 2020, often in the middle of a brawl, typically clad in black and yellow outfits.

But in December, as the group's leaders planned to flood Washington to oppose the certification of the Electoral College vote this week for President-elect Joe Biden, they decided to do something different.

“The ProudBoys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist...," Henry “Enrique" Tarrio, the group's president, wrote in a late-December post on Parler, a social media platform that has become popular with right-wing activists and conservatives. “We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows....we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion."

The precise composition of the mob that forced its way into the Capitol on Wednesday, disrupting sessions of both houses of Congress and leaving a police officer and four others dead, remains unknown. But a review by a ProPublica-FRONTLINE team that has been tracking far-right movements for the past three yearsshows that thecrowd included members of the Proud Boys and other groups with violent ideologies. Videos reveal the presence of several noted hardcore nativists and white nationalists who participated in the 2017 white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that President Donald Trump infamously refused to condemn.

Tarrio does not appear to have been present during the insurrection. Two days before members of the House and Senate gathered to certify the Electoral College results, Washington's Metropolitan Police Department arrested Tarrio and charged him with possessing high-capacity firearm magazines and destruction of property over the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner last month. A judge barred him from entering the city while he awaits trial.

But it appears that Tarrio's followers heeded his advice. A journalist working with ProPublica and FRONTLINE encountered members of the Proud Boys in dark clothes walking through Washington on the night before the attack. The four men posed for a photo and confirmed their membership in the group. Few participants involved in the Capitol siege were seen wearing Proud Boys colors or logos.

But since the incident, Proud Boys social media channels have flaunted their direct role in the attack and looting of the Capitol.

One prominent Proud Boys account encouraged rioters as the chaos was unfolding: “Hold your ground!!!... DO NOT GO HOME. WE ARE ON THE CUSP OF SAVING THE CONSTITUTION."

So far, police have arrested more than 80 people in connection with the attack, including at least oneProud Boy, Nick Ochs. They have seized pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails and arrested at least six people on illegal firearms charges, including one Maryland man who was captured in the visitors' center of the Capitol. More arrests are expected.

As the crowds ringing the Capitol swelled on Wednesday, a small group of men clad in body armor shuffled toward the doors at the center of the building's east-facing facade.

The eight men, whose movements were captured on video, were identified by ProPublica and FRONTLINE as members of the Oath Keepers, a long-standing militia group that has pledged to ignite a civil war on behalf of Trump. Members of the group joined the protesters and insurrectionists flooding into the Capitol. Footage from later in the day shows Oath Keepers dragging a wounded comrade out of the building.

Stewart Rhodes, a former soldier and Yale law school graduate, who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 and built it into a nationwide network, was seen on video standing outside the Capitol building. While he was not seen entering the Capitol, he could be seen talking with his militia followers throughout the day.

Several other of the participants ProPublica and FRONTLINE identified from video have direct links to the white nationalist movement, which has seen a resurgence of activity during the Trump era.

One was Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who streams a daily talk show on DLive, an alternative social media platform. Fuentes, who marched in Charlottesville during the 2017 white power rally there, speaks frequently in anti-Semitic terms and pontificates on the need to protect America's white heritage from the ongoing shift in the nation's demographics. He has publicly denied believing in white nationalism but has said that he considers himself a “white majoritarian."

Fuentes, who spoke at pro-Trump rallies late last year in Michigan and Washington, D.C., said he was at the rally on Wednesday but didn't follow the mob into the Capitol. One group of Fuentes' supporters, who call themselves the Groyper Army, was filmed running through the Capitol carrying a large blue flag with the America First logo.

Days before the Capitol was stormed, Fuentes seemed to encourage his followers to kill state legislators in a bid to overturn Biden's electoral victory, as Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University who follows online extremist communities, noted on Twitter.

“What can you and I do to a state legislator — besides kill him?" he said with a smirk. “We should not do that. I'm not advising that, but I mean, what else can you do, right?"

Squire fears that Fuentes' incendiary rhetoric will inspire his followers to engage in more drastic — even lethal — acts of political violence. “Instead of trying to appear democratic he's making an argument for fascism, for monarchism," she said. “He's criticizing democracy at every turn. He doesn't believe in democracy and it's scary because his fans find him fascinating."

DLive recently announced that it has booted Fuentes from its platform.

Another figure inside the Capitol with ties to white nationalists was Tim Gionet, a livestreamer who uses the handle Baked Alaskaand who participated in the Charlottesville rally, which left one woman dead. Gionet was photographed within the Capitol and apparently used DLive to stream from within the building as events unfolded. Part of his video appeared to show him in Nancy Pelosi's office, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

Other extremist figures present either at the rally or within the Capitol included Vincent James Foxx, an online propagandist for the Rise Above Movement, a now-defunct Southern California white supremacist group.

Also on scene: Gabe Brown, a New Englander who helped create Anticom, a now-defunct organization devoted to physically combating leftists. In 2017, Anticom members posted a vast trove of bomb-making manuals to a private online chatroom.

The militant group members joined with scores of others who rampaged inside the Capitol.

Rep. André Carson, a Democrat from Indiana, said the scene reminded him of a Ku Klux Klan rally. Photos from within the Capitol showed one unidentified man carrying a Confederate battle flag and another wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with a skull and the words “Camp Auschwitz," a reference to the infamous Nazi death camp.

Carson and other House members who spoke to ProPublica and FRONTLINE said the body would be launching an extensive investigation of the Capitol Police force and its mishandling of Wednesday's events.

The rioters, said Carson, who is Black, “were hostile. They were venomous. And I think there was a sense of entitlement that they carried that somehow their country was being taken away from them."

After the siege, a Boogaloo Bois group called the Last Sons of Liberty, which includes militants from Virginia, posted a video to Parler purporting to document their role in the incident — a clip that shows members inside the Capitol. A loose-knit confederation of anti-government militants, theBoogaloo Bois have been tied to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and to the murder of two law enforcement officers in California. ProPublica and FRONTLINE have been unable to independently confirm their involvement.

Some far-right activists are already calling for retribution over the death of Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from California who was shot and killed by a security officer. “We've got a girl that's dead. She's shot, laying on the ground in there," said Damon Beckley, leader of a group called DC Under Siege, in an interview just outside the Capitol while the riot was ongoing. “We're not putting up with this tyrannical rule. ... If we gotta come back here and start a revolution and take all these traitors out — which is what should happen — then we will."

Another person took to Parler to say that they were planning to show up, armed, in Washington for Inauguration Day. “Many of us will return on January 19, 2021 carrying Our weapons," wrote the Parler user, who goes by the handle Colonel007. “We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match."

The Proud Boys also celebrated on social media. On Parler, one Proud Boys leader posted a photo of members of Congress cowering in fear and captioned it with a menacing statement: “Today you found out. The power of the people will not be denied."

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an 121

"We're in! Let's go, keep it moving, baby!" shouted Derrick Evans, a newly elected Republican member of West Virginia's House of Delegates, as he is seen pushing his way through the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol with a throng of violent Trump supporters in a video live-streamed on Facebook.

"Trump, Trump, Trump!" he chanted as attackers rushed the doors.

The video, deleted by Evans after circulating Twitter, shows him donning a helmet and military gear, shouting, "Derrick Evans is in the Capitol [...] Patriots inside, baby!"

Evans, 34, won his first term as a state lawmaker in November and was charged by the Department of Justice on Friday for illegally entering the Capitol. He is one of several elected Republican lawmakers across the country who have been identified as either participating in or aiding violent pro-Trump attacks on legislative bodies this week.

Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, who describes herself as "Trump in heels," spoke at the rally that preceded the riot on Wednesday. She later praised the rioters and blamed the violence on "antifa or BLM agents of destruction," for which her Facebook account was suspended on Friday. After Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem posted photos of himself at Trump's rally, he continued to push a baseless conspiracy theory— that anti-fascist activists, not Trump supporters, broke into the Capitol — which had already been debunked by the Department of Justice.

Missouri state lawmaker Rep. Justin Hill skipped his own swearing-in ceremony to travel to Trump's coup, where he admits he sat back and watched as an angry mob descended on the U.S. Capitol. Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a retired military colonel who said he helped organize a bus ride to the demonstrations, posed for photos with former Republican state representative Rick Saccone, who served for 18 years in the U.S. Air Force.

"We're storming the Capitol!" Saccone said in a. "They broke down the gates!" he continued. "They're macing them up there. We're trying to run out all of the evil people and all the RINOs that have betrayed our president. We're going to run them out of their offices!"

oregon Republican Rep. Mike Nearman was caught on video opening a door to protestors who rushed into the state Capitol in Salem on Dec. 21. Some rioters then sprayed six law enforcement officers with a chemical substance and others violently attacked journalists.

In light of his actions, West Virginia officials are now calling for Evans' hasty prosecution and resignation.

The West Virginia Democratic Party declared in a statement, "[Evans] must be held accountable for participating in an act of insurrection against the United States government and risking the lives of lawmakers and Capitol police." The Party added, "The West Virginia Democratic Party calls for his immediate resignation from the House of Delegates and that he be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." A Change.org petition, with over 50,000 signatories, has also called for Evans' immediate removal from office.

Roger Hanshaw, the speaker of the West Virginia's House of Delegates, said Evans will have to "answer to his constituents and colleagues regarding his involvement in what has occurred today."

Evans responded to sharp rebukes online by claiming that he did not participate in any violence or destruction of property, and defended his involvement in the riot as "an independent member of the media." He added, "I want to assure you all that I did not have any negative interactions with law enforcement."

Evans' attorney John H. Bryan told NBCthat his client "did nothing wrong." Bryan explained, "He was exercising his First Amendment rights to peacefully protest and film a historic and dynamic event [...] He engaged in no violence, no rioting, no destruction of property, and no illegal behavior."

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol-hill-police-officer-brian-sicknick/

trump no flag 1/2 staff

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol-riot-2649853523

In addition to the police officer killed by pro-Trump rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was 34-year-old Rosanne Boyland, a woman holding a "Don't Tread on Me" flag who was crushed and trampled to death by her fellow "patriots" (as the Trumps call them).

Boyland raided the Capitol along with hundreds of other insurrectionists. Her friend and fellow insurrectionist Justin Winchell told 9 News, "[Our fellow rioters] basically created a panic, and the police, in turn, push back on them, so people started falling. I put my arm underneath her and was pulling her out and then another guy fell on top of her, and another guy was just walking (on top of her). There were people stacked two-three deep… people just crushed."

Winchell said that paramedics tried to revive her but were unable.

Conservatives have adopted the American Revolution-era yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flag, also known as the Gadsden flag, as a way to oppose government intervention.

Boyland's brother-in-law Justin Law told the news outlet, "I've never tried to be a political person but it's my own personal belief that the president's words incited a riot that killed four of his biggest fans last night and I believe that we should invoke the 25th amendment at this time," adding, "Our family is grieving on every level for our country, for all the families that have lost loved ones or suffered injuries, for our own loss."

In addition to crushing a fellow insurrectionist, Trump's followers also killed a cop, Brian Sicknick, during their riot. Investigators are now opening federal murder charges into his death. So much for the "Blue Lives Matter" law-and-order crowd. Three others also died during the riots.

The FBI has since put out a wanted poster seeking 10 individuals caught on camera during the riots. Authorities are also combing through social media to identify the insurrectionists whose theft of government property may have caused a national security breach. Thus far, nearly82 arrests have been made in connection with the coup attempt.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/07/fact-check-capitol-trespasser-in-horns-misrepresented-as-antifa/6581755002/

Fact Check: Face-painted Capitol Building trespasser in horns is a known QAnon supporter

Devon Link

USA TODAY

Claim: The shirtless man pictured in Capitol Building breach is with antifa and BLM

After a mob stormed the nation's Capitol on Wednesday, marking an unprecedented day in American history, the world is left wondering who to blame. Amid the upset and confusion, conservative social media users are falsely identifying one trespasser as a liberal actor.

“AZ BLM rally in June, DC Capital in January,” Cari Kelemen tweeted on Jan. 6 alongside two photos of a shirtless man wearing face paint and horns.

Twitter flagged Kelemen’s post as “Manipulated media” and directed users to information that the claims that suggest the man is associated with antifa, rather than far-right movements are false.

Kelemen continued to share tweets, claiming the man was a paid actor and the Capitol Building breach was staged....

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aha: can be a pseudo-event: in insurrection, virtually everyone was using their phone to video? like accidental conquer of crusader jersusalem the point was to chaos disrupt intimidate congress to stop election certification, but mostly the goal was to make the scene, as they used to say, SEEN eg baked alaska influencers photo/video op; ultimate prize/winner is selfie in speaker chair?

jorno pushed over stone railing? CNN sucks then trashed gear, we bum rushed it was beautiful, noose made from cable]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol/

many pix lnx twt vid?

'Murder the media': Photographers release terrifying video of the mob attack outside the Capitol gates

‘This is horrifying’: Videos show injured officers being evacuated after clashes with Trump supporters

Aysha Qamar and Daily Kos January 09, 2021

As violent Trump supporters terrorized the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, members of Congress were not the only people they were looking to intimidate. These terrorists also targeted journalists and press under Donald Trump's message of declaring the news and media an "enemy of the people."

"Murder the media," was written on a door of the Capitol while terrorists took over and attacked a group of reporters. In one incident John Minchillo, a photographer of the Associated Press, was attacked by a mob of Trump supporters outside the Capitol building. The violent incident was captured on video and shared by another photographer on Twitter. Local photographers and reporters were present at the break of the horrific violence that took place Wednesday. Footage shared on social media depicts the consequences of words bigots like Trump use to incite violence on communities and spaces.

"Please use this moment to reflect on the importance of journalism as a conduit between us. We tell stories. That's our mission. We have the privilege to shepherd moments over time and space. Please subscribe to your hard working local papers, support their vocation," Minchillo replied to the video of his attack being shared on Twitter.

(WARNING: This story contains violent video, photos, and language that may not be suitable for all readers.)

In a thread of photos posted on Twitter, BuzzFeed News reporter Paul McLeod captured photos of equipment left behind by the Associated press after crowds attacked reporters. According to McLeod, one man yelled "We are the news now, as a crowd damaged the equipment. McLeod also reported that a noose was fashioned from a camera cord and hung from a tree.

The Associated Press confirmed that its equipment had been stolen and destroyed and noted that none of its staff members had been injured.

In another video posted on Twitter, the terrorists again attempted to target individuals they thought were from CNN. While it is unclear whether the journalist was from CNN, the fact that these journalists were assaulted is not okay.

But the violent Trump allies were not the only ones after journalists on Wednesday.Reporters for The Washington Post were shortly detained by police while reporting on Tuesday night, following a pattern of law enforcement officials arresting reporters for doing their work throughout this year.

The reporters arrested were identified as Zoeann Murphy and Whitney Leaming. The two shared on Twitter that they were safe after quickly being released. "I have heard from so many journalist friends/colleagues who were at or around the Capitol today that they are 'fine'. This is a lie," Leaming tweeted. "They are not fine but they push aside their physical safety and mental health to focus on the story at hand [because] one of the most important rules of journalism is that the story is not about you. Just please remember that and maybe not threaten their life, I beg you."

According to The New York Times, media officials were threatened and surrounded for hours, those inside the Capitol building were forced to find shelter in secure locations to avoid assault. A reporter with The Los Angeles Times recalled her experience hiding in the House gallery during an armed standoff.

Sarah D. Wire of The Los Angeles Times wrote:

I heard a ruckus behind me and turned and saw a dozen reporters being ushered into the gallery from press offices. Then police shut and locked the doors. Police interrupted the proceedings to announce that tear gas had been deployed in the rotunda.

A staff member handed me an evacuation hood, a cumbersome plastic bag that filters out tear gas and chemicals. She told me to pass it and others down the row until everyone had one. Reporters were not the only ones in the gallery. Staff members were monitoring the proceedings. More than a dozen lawmakers had also taken seats in the public galleries overlooking the House floor. Now we were locked in the room together.

The rioters driven by Trump's hate clearly had no fear of police involvement. CBS News reporter Chip Reid, who has worn protective gear he last wore while covering conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, noted thata rioter told him law enforcement officials would not protect journalists. "There were no police around us—we were on our own," Reid said. "We high-tailed it out of there."

Of course, Trump later addressed the crowd in a video statement Wednesday but continued on his claims that the election has been "stolen." The video removed by many social media outlets including Facebook and Twitter is predicted to incite further violence. As Trump continues to target anyone who calls out his lies, his zombies continue to ready for battle.

"Rioters at the Capitol called for violence against members of the news media, destroyed news equipment and verbally harassed journalists as the 'enemy of the people's—actions that not only pose a dire threat to those working tirelessly to bring information to our communities, but also to the press freedom that is a bedrock value of our nation," Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement.

"These actions are the direct result of years of this language stoking fear and hate for one of our most vital institutions. Our free press is crucial to democracy, and indeed, one of the pillars that will help keep it standing beyond this moment."

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as of 1/8 caveat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol

On January 6, 2021, a mob of rioters supporting United States President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election stormed the U.S. Capitol, breaching security and occupying parts of the building for several hours. The riots were incited by comments made by Trump at an earlier rally.^[15][16][17] The storming disrupted a joint session of Congress to count the vote of the Electoral College and certify Joe Biden's election victory, and led to evacuations and lockdowns of the building.

Following several months of false claims by Trump about voting fraud in the November 2020 election, thousands of his supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., on January 5 and 6 to protest the election results and demand that Vice President Mike Pence and Congress reject Biden's victory.^[18][19][20] On the morning of January 6, protesters assembled at the "Save America" rally^[21][22] on the Ellipse, where President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and several members of Congress addressed the crowd.^[23] Trump encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell" to "take back our country" and to march towards the Capitol, while his lawyer Giuliani called for "trial by combat".^[24][25]

Trump's supporters subsequently stormed the Capitol building^[26] during the Electoral College vote count. As the rioters entered the Capitol by breaking through windows and doors, Capitol security evacuated the Senate and House of Representatives chambers. Several buildings in the Capitol complex were evacuated, and all of them were subsequently locked down.^[27] Rioters broke past security to occupy the evacuated Senate chamber while guards drew handguns to prevent entry to the evacuated House floor.^{[28][29][30][31][32]}[excessive ^citations]

Five people have been confirmed dead from the events and others were seriously injured. One woman attempting to enter the House chamber through a barricaded door was shot by law enforcement and later died.^[33][34][35] Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick collapsed after being attacked with a fire extinguisher by rioters and later died.^[12][36] Three rioters suffered fatal medical emergencies during the event. Improvised explosive devices were found on the Capitol grounds, as well as at offices for the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, but they did not detonate.

Trump reacted slowly to the storming, first resisting sending National Guard to quell the violent mob,^[37] and eventually praising the rioters as "great patriots" and telling them to "go home in peace" while reiterating false claims of election fraud.^[38][39] The crowd was then dispersed out of the U.S. Capitol later that evening. The process to certify Electoral College results resumed shortly after 8 p.m. that evening and continued to its conclusion the following morning. Under pressure from his administration, including many resignations, Trump committed to an "orderly transition" of power in a statement.^[40][41][42]

The incident was the first time the Capitol had been overrun since 1814 in the Burning of Washington by the British Army during the War of 1812.^[43] The events prompted widespread condemnation by political leaders and organizations across the country. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the storming of the Capitol a "failed insurrection". House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Pence to formally invoke the 25th Amendment, while threatening to impeach Trump for a second time.^[44] Twitter and Facebook responded by locking Trump's accounts and removing posts related to the incident.^[45] The riots and storming of the Capitol were described as insurrection, sedition, and domestic terrorism.^[46][47][48] Multiple scholars and news outlets labeled the act as an attempted coup d'état by Trump.^[49][50] By January 8, the United States Department of Justice had announced that charges of rioting, seditious conspiracy, and insurrection were under consideration.^[51]

Background

With Congress scheduled to meet on January 6, 2021, to count the results of the Electoral College vote, Trump announced plans for a rally ahead of the event to continue his protest on the validity of several states' election results. On December 18, Trump announced, "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"^[53] Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser requested on December 31, 2020, that District of Columbia National Guard troops be deployed to support local police during the anticipated demonstrations. She wrote in her request that the guards would not be armed, and that they would be primarily responsible for "crowd management" and traffic direction, allowing police to focus on security concerns. Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller approved the request on January 4, 2021. The approval activated 340 troops, with no more than 114 to be deployed at any given time.^[54] Three days before the riots, the Pentagon twice offered to send in the National Guard, but were told by the United States Capitol Police that it would not be necessary.^[55]On November 3, 2020, Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, defeating the incumbent Republican president Donald Trump. Before, during, and after the counting of votes, Trump and other Republicans attempted to overturn the election, falsely alleging widespread voter fraud.^[52]

Trump had spent previous days suggesting that Pence should reject Biden's victory, an act that is not within Pence's constitutional powers as vice president, and he repeated this call in his speech on the morning of January 6.^[56] The same afternoon, Pence released a letter to Congress in which he said he would not challenge Biden's victory.^[56][57]

Planning of storming

Many websites used to plan the events at the Capitol are regarded as "alt-tech" platforms, distinct from larger social media platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, and other sites that have implemented bans to censor violent language and images. Sites like TheDonald.win, founded after its predecessor was banned from Reddit; social networking service Parler; the chat app Telegram; and others were used to discuss previous Trump rallies and make plans for storming the Capitol.^[58] At least one group, Stop the Steal, posted on December 23, 2020, their plans to occupy the Capitol with promises to "escalate" if they were met with opposition from law enforcement.^[59] Many of the posters planned for potential violence prior to the event, with some individuals discussing how to avoid police on the streets and which tools to bring to help pry open doors.^[60]

Events in the District of Columbia

Thousands of attendees gathered in Freedom Plaza on January 5, 2021, in advance of protests planned for the week.^[61] On the night of January 5 and into the morning of January 6, at least ten people were arrested, several on weapons charges.^[30]

"Save America March" in Washington, D.C.

Protesters at Union Station in the morning on January 6

On the morning of January 6, protesters surrounded the Washington Monument to rally. Several people gave speeches on the Ellipse, including Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani and Trump himself. Giuliani addressed the crowd, repeating conspiracy theories that voting machines used in the election were "crooked" and calling for "trial by combat".^[62] Congressman Mo Brooks told the crowd "Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass" and Congressman Madison Cawthorn said "this crowd has some fight."^[63][64]

Trump gave a speech from behind a glass barrier, declaring he would "never concede" the election, criticizing the media and calling for Pence to overturn the election results, something that was not within Pence's constitutional power.^[56][65]

Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol, where Congress meets:

You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard today.^[66]

Trump also told his supporters to "fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." He declared they would be "going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give [Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country".^[25] Trump's speech, replete with misrepresentations and lies, inflamed the crowd.^[40]

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump also spoke, verbally attacking Republican congressmen and senators who were not supporting the effort to challenge the Electoral College vote, and promising to campaign against them in future primary elections.^[67]

Rioting in the Capitol building

Police release tear gas outside the United States Capitol

At about 1:00 p.m. local time, hundreds of participants of Trump's rally, encouraged by Trump's speech, left the rally and advanced on the Capitol building.^[68] Some of the protesters arrived at the Capitol in response to posts on pro-Trump far-right social media websites, including Gab and Parler, which featured calls for violence against Congress, and included adherents to groups such as QAnon, the Groyper Army and the Proud Boys, among others.^[69][70]

The crowd became violent just after 2:00 p.m.[3] As rally attendees arrived at the Capitol to meet other protesters already gathered there, at about 2:15 p.m. the barricades around the perimeter of the Capitol grounds manned by police were breached, and Capitol security advised the members of Congress to take cover.^[71][72] As rioters began to storm the Capitol and other nearby buildings, some buildings in the complex were evacuated, and rioters broke past security to enter the Capitol itself, including the National Statuary Hall.^[30][31] At the time of the disruption, the joint session of Congress had just voted to accept the Electoral Votes from Alabama (9) and Alaska (3) without objection. The joint session then split up so that each chamber could separately debate and then vote on an objection to accepting the certified results of the slate of electors from Arizona that was raised by Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona and signed on by Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, with both chambers roughly halfway through their two-hour debate on the motion.^[73][74]

After breaching the security perimeter,^[75][76] most rioters simply walked into the Capitol on foot; others used ropes and makeshift ladders, and some broke windows to get in.^[77] The crowd of pro-Trump extremists swept past barriers and officers, with some members of the mob spraying officers with chemical agents.^[3] Some of the rioters carried Confederate flags,^[3][78] Nazi emblems,^[79] and wore riot gear, including helmets and military-style vests.^[3] Outside the building, the mob put up a gallows, punctured a police vehicle's tires, and left a note saying "PELOSI IS SATAN" on the windshield.^[3]...

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/insurrection

The disturbing violence that ensued on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Jan. 6 was a pinnacle of far-right rhetoric and several weeks of premeditated online planning clearly publicized on right-wing media websites, according to a new report published by NPR.

Jared Holt, a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) in Washington, D.C., offered details about his own findings after investigating right-wing extremist activity online. Since President Donald Trump lost the presidential election,Holt has noted an uptick on various sites including "Parler, Gab, TheDonald, and MeWe."

According to Holt, those sites have been inundated with "conspiracy theories, disinformation and outright lies about the results of the election." He also noted that many of the lies circulated on those sites "often came from the top arbiters of power in the Republican Party, notably President Donald Trump himself."

Holt also noted that the vast majority of the posts published by TheDonald ahead of the Electoral College certification highlighted "calls for violence."

More than 80% of the top posts on TheDonald on Wednesday about the Electoral College certification featured calls for violence in the top five responses, according to research from Advance Democracy, Inc., an independent, non-partisan organization.

On social media platforms, including Twitter and TikTok there were other posts inciting violence on Jan. 6 several days before the event took place. The publication reports "ADI found more than 1,480 posts from QAnon-related accounts about Jan. 6 that contained terms of violence since Jan. 1."

A substantial number of TikTok videos inciting violence had also gone viral with "hundreds of thousands of views." While it is no secret that President Donald Trump's post-election rhetoric over the last two months contributed to his base's hostile response, his promotion of the "Save America" rally and his remarks during the event subsequently served as gasoline being poured on a blazing dumpster fire.

"Then it really, really went nuts," Holt says. After Trump promoteda Jan. 6 protest in D.C., "a lot of his extremist supporters interpreted this as a call to action for them."

While Holt claims he was "closely monitoring" the dialogue and discussions taking place on right-wing platforms, he admits he was taken aback by the rapid escalation in violence that erupted on Capitol Hill.

"I was surprised," Holt admitted. "One of the challenges of doing the line of work that I do is these are extremist communities and the rhetoric is extreme just all the time. It got really, really intense running up to the protest, but oftentimes the ratio of extreme rhetoric to extreme action — there is a little bit of difference there."

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an 121

Facial recognition company refutes viral conservative site's story used by GOP congressman to bolster bogus 'antifa' claim

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https://www.thewrap.com/washington-times-false-antifa-story-capitol-matt-gaetz/

Washington Times corrected a story Thursday that falsely claimed Antifa members were identified among the right-wing mob that infiltrated the Capitol on Wednesday. The outlet also apologized [IE AVOIDED LAWSUIT // SMARTMATIC KRAKEN] to the facial recognition software company at the center of the piece,which was initially deleted Thursday afternoon before being reinstated with the correction.

The story — which was referenced by Rep. Matt Gaetz when he suggested there was left-wing infiltration of the insurrectionists — is no longer on the Times’ site. The link to the piece redirects back to the Times’ home page. According to New York Times reporter Davey Alba, the now-deleted article was the 11th most visited webpage in the U.S. over the last 24 hours.

“Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that XRVision facial recognition software identified Antifa members among rioters who stormed the Capitol Wednesday. XRVision did not identify any Antifa members. The Washington Times apologizes to XRVision for the error,” says the correction.

Also Read:Rep. Gaetz, Sean Hannity and More Baselessly Suggest 'Antifa' Instigated Capitol Mob

On Thursday, Buzzfeed News reported that the facial recognition software at the heart of the Times’ story, XRVision, objected to the piece on the grounds that it was false. A lawyer for the company told Buzzfeed News that XRVision asked the Washington Times for a retraction and an apology.

According to a statement from XRVision CTO Yaacov Apelbaum, the original article claimed, “A retired military officer told The Washington Times that the firm XRVision used its software to do facial recognition of protesters and matched two Philadelphia antifa members to two men inside the Senate.”

Apelbaum wrote, “XRVision didn’t generate any composites or detections for the Washington Times or for any ‘retired military officer,’ nor did it authorize them to make any such claims or representations. Additionally, The Washington Times never attempted to contact XRVision to verify their false claim prior publication.”

He pointed out that XRVision did perform an analysis, which returned two matches linking participants in Wednesday’s riot to “Nazi organizations,” not Antifa.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/mike-pence-2649792274/

kill traitor

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see campus reform cabot philips

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13 in sedition caucus?

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honor fight?

Tempers flared in Congress early Thursday morning as Republicans continued to deny the fact that President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

As Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) attempted do defend his state as Republicans sought to disenfranchise the Pennsylvania's voters, a scuffle almost broke out on the floor.

CNN's Kristin Wilson reported on the scene.

he called me a liar

rep. Andy Harris anaestheilogisy and Rep Colin Allred nfl linebacker] yelped at each other to “sit down” “no, you sit down!” from across the floor. Then confronted each other in aisle. At least a dozen other members bench cleared from their sides.

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A screaming Joe Scarborough demanded the arrest of President Donald Trump, the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and the president's son, Donald Trump, Jr., for inciting Wednesday's deadly violent insurrection.

"Are we a nation of laws?" the "Morning Joe" co-host yelled the morning after thousands of armed Trump MAGA supporters, some draped in "Make America Great Again" flags, breached the nation's Capitol Building, with hundreds crawling the halls of America's seat of government.

"Donald J. Trump called for the insurrection against the United States of America. He called for it. Rudy Giuliani called for 'combat justice,'just an hour or two before this happened. Donald Trump, Jr. said, 'We are coming for you!'"

"That's insurrection against the United States of America. And if Donald Trump, Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump are not arrested today for insurrection and taken to jail and booked, and if the Capitol Hill Police do not go through every video, and look at the face of every person that invaded our Capitol, and if they are not arrested and brought to justice today, then we are no longer a nation of laws and we only tell people they can do this again."

Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski also blasted the Capitol Hill Police for treating the insurrectionists with kid gloves "because they are white," and accusing them of opening "the fucking doors" for the Trump insurrectionists.

"If these insurrectionists were Black, they would have been shot in the face. And my god, if these insurrectionists were Muslim, they would have been shot from the top of buildings."

Watch:

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/trump-antifa/

Critics of President Donald Trump has long feared that violence would occur in Washington, D.C. on January 6, and an article by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg describes some of the comments he heard from Trump supporters before a mob invaded the Capitol Building to delay Congress' certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.

In his article, published by The Atlantic, Goldberg recalls, "Insurrection Day, 12:40 p.m. A group of about 80 lumpen Trumpists were gathered outside the Commerce Department, near the White House. They organized themselves in a large circle, and stared at a boombox rigged to a megaphone. Their leader and, for some, savior — a number of them would profess to me their belief that the 45th president is an agent of God and his son, Jesus Christ — was rehearsing his pitiful list of grievances."

Trump told the crowd, "A year from now, we're gonna start working on Congress. We gotta get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren't any good — the Liz Cheneys of the world. We gotta get rid of them."

In response, Trump supporters standing near Goldberg shouted, "Fuck Liz Cheney." And one of them, a woman in a cat costume, was holding a sign that showed the letter "Q" — as in the QAnon conspiracy cult. She told Goldberg, "We're going to stop the steal. If (Vice President Mike) Pence isn't going to stop it, we have to."

From ⁦@JeffreyGoldberg⁩: “Mass Delusion in America; What I heard from insurrectionists on their march to the Capito… https://t.co/f1iGvEuBy2

— Jake Tapper (@Jake Tapper)1609991550.0

Goldberg remembered that the woman in the cat costume and other far-right Trumpistas asked him to remove his protective face mask, but he refused. And when he mentioned that the U.S. was in the middle of a pandemic, he responded, "Yeah, right."

"We will find out shortly if today's insurrection was also a superspreader event," Goldberg explains. "What I do know, after spending hours sponging up Trumpist paranoia, conspiracism and cultishness, is that this gathering was not merely an attempted coup, but also, a mass-delusion event — not something that can be explained adequately through the prism of politics. Its chaos was rooted in psychological and theological phenomena."

Another far-right Trump supporter told Goldberg, "It's all in the Bible. Everything is predicted. Donald Trump is in the Bible. Get yourself ready."

Goldberg recalls, "It did not strike me, even then, that this mob would actually storm the Capitol. I assumed, in a non-insurrectionary failure of imagination, that they would gather on the Capitol's sloping lawn, sing Lee Greenwood anthems, and curse Mitt Romney. There were Proud Boys — or at least Proud Boy-adjacent boys — in this group; they would not speak to me but were also not overtly hostile."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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aha interesting morph of term: orig illegit use of mil force to take control, but soft coup is metaphorical, thus stop the steal is coup? // traitor

note rhet, note always defensive, it's kraken that is coup

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/prepare-for-war-gop-official-pushes-dangerous-conspiracy-theories-over-election-outcome/

It has been three days since the Electoral College confirmed President-elect Joe Biden's victory, but an overwhelming number of Republicans are still refusing to accept the outcome of the election. Propaganda articles and infotainment videos on conspiracy theories are still circulating as Trump supporters continue their fight to "stop the steal."

Now, an article published by the Seattle Times highlights another problem with the spread of misinformation. The writer notes that it is one thing when dangerous falsehoods come from unknown websites that lack credibility, but some of the latest threats are coming from members of the Republican Party.

According to the publication, on Monday, Rep. Robert J. Sutherland, a representative of the 39th legislative district of Eastern Snohomish County along with Skagit County, took to Facebook with a number of dangerous claims about the election.

In multiple posts, he referenced reports and claims from right-wing influencers and propaganda sites as he said,"prepare for war. Joe Biden is not now, nor will ever be my President. Am I a sore loser? No. I'm pro-America and anti-communist. Joe Biden is a bought and paid for Communist China puppet. Stay tuned, big things happening soon at the Federal level."

In a series of other Facebook posts and discussions, Sutherland also insisted that he supported the idea of going to war over the so-called "coup against the sitting president."

"Is the 'coup' against the sitting President the start of a second 'Civil War' here in the USA?" Sutherland asked as he noted his support of Trump possibly using the military to maintain his presidential power.

"What good and decent person [xian crusade? deus vult?] would not conduct a war to defend Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of happiness, their families, their neighbors?" Sutherland asked.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/bill-barr-goes-full-on-right-wing-nutjob/

Are you kidding me? Sedition? From 1798?

Just in case someone is not persuaded that this Trump Administration is falling off its rocker, the advice from Atty. Gen. William P. Barr to federal prosecutors to use a two-century-old law to stop people – no, specifically “violent” leftist protests outside federal courthouses – from seeking to overthrow the government should make us stop and scratch our collective heads.

For openers, protesting disproportionate police brutality against Black citizens is not calling for the overthrow of the government.

Secondly, there is actual evidence that groups other than Black Lives Matter or the oft-cited, if unorganized “antifa” are not the only ones in street. You heard nothing from Barr about using sedition laws against actual, organized, gun-toting, right-wing, white supremacist nationals who seem actually to want to overthrow the government – as well as to mix it up with lefties in the streets. Thirdly, sedition laws have not been used over two centuries for good reason: Their Constitutionality runs very close to the edge of First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly that have protected leftists, neo-Nazis, right-wingers, flag-burners and vocal bayers-at-the-moon.

Looking for a definitive reason to deny the Trump team four more years? How about using the law to declare a virtual shutdown of civil liberties and free speech. Barr’s remarks this week were so outrageous that comparing state orders mandating masks and shutdowns for public health to slavery were not even the top line head-slap.

Aggressive Tactics

This has nothing to do with people who break rules about trespass or fire-setting or bottle-throwing,

No, this is the baring of raw power to shut down dissent. And it is a blatant attempt to use the Justice Department to underscore a Donald Trump campaign promise for Law & Order prompted by several localized protests that turn violent only in the middle of the night – a continuation of absolute reinterpretations of law and procedure to promote Trump’s politics.

The wording of the federal sedition statute says it is a crime for two or more people to conspire to use force to oppose federal authority, hinder the government’s ability to enforce any federal law or unlawfully seize any federal property — elements that might conceivably be made to fit a plot to, say, break into and set fire to a federal courthouse, despite evidence that more than 93% of nearly 8,000 Black Lives Matter protests between May and August this year have been peaceful.

Maybe Barr should be looking at those organized Western ranchers, right-wingers all, when they held off enforcement of federal water law enforcement at gunpoint. Or at organized, armed Trump supporters who entered statehouses to threaten the lives of legislators considering laws to require coronavirus masks.

Or he could be looking at Trump administration officials and Republican supporters calling on people to arm themselves for insurrection in the event that Joe Biden wins the election. Or maybe even at the continued use of federal law enforcement and the Justice Department itself as political instruments to advance the partisan cause of a single sitting president seeking reelection, clearly throwing out any separations of power as constitutionally required to get his way in a wide variety of cases ranging from the misuse of U.S. intelligence to the matters of impeachment.

Just who here is seeking the overthrow of government as we have known it for 200 years? FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House committee it is right-wing white militias. Where’s Barr?

I get that Barr wants prosecutors to be aggressive in the case of Portland’s protests, which have involved the setting of small fires at the federal courthouse. Pursue shooters who have emerged aggressively, please. But moving to sedition and its 20-year sentences in the name of liberty and Law & Order?Are we Belarus or Hong Kong?

Overkill

Actually, coincidental to the disclosures about using sedition laws, came news that federal officials had been stockpiling ammunition and devices that could emit deafening sounds or singe anyone within range feel like their skin is on fire to clear Lafayette Squarein Washington for that Donald Trump Bible photo op. The disclosures came in The Washington Post from D.C. National Guard Maj. Adam D. DeMarco, who led the brigade there, and filed them as a whistleblower.

Are we nuts all of a sudden as a nation or can we see this as the excess of a bad political campaign? Does Barr think we are idiots? He actually compared his own prosecutors to pre-schoolers and asserted that he and Trump are in charge, not those career prosecutors who make daily decisions in individual cases.

Barr was wrong in citing “a dozen cases” each year in which Black citizens are mistreated; there are 250 deaths at the hands of police this last year. He and Trump are wrong to deny that there are systemic elements to racism in this country and to our policing practices.

The federal sedition law is rarely invoked, and something that does not seem to fit the circumstances of the unrest in places like Portland in response to police killings of Black men. So, too, would be ordering the arrest of the Seattle mayor for allowing a protest to cool itself in that city.

Promoting sedition laws to stop protests is an extremist Justice Department policy. Barr has no business being attorney general.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stone-antifa-and-black-lives-matter-thugs-are-going-be-clubbing-people-suburbs

Roger Stone: Antifa and Black Lives Matter “thugs” are going to be “clubbing” people in the suburbs to suppress voting

09/18/20 4:25 PM EDT

roger Stone continues to lay the groundwork for Trump to declare martial law

09/18/20 1:26 PM EDT

https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stone-continues-lay-groundwork-trump-declare-martial-law

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/warning-left-wing-coup-trumpist-media-prep-their-audience-election-unrest

no lnx many

Warning of a left-wing coup, Trumpist media prep their audience for election unrest

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 09/18/20 10:25 AM EDT

Trump

Molly Butler / Media Matters

Nearly 5 million people were watching on Tuesday night as a Fox News host who claims that white supremacy is a hoax and a former speechwriter for President Donald Trump who was fired for speaking at a white nationalist conference spun out a wild-eyed conspiracy theory portraying mail-in voting as a sinister Democratic cabal’s coup attempt.

Tucker Carlson opened the segment by telling his viewers that Democrats were promoting mail-in voting not as a way to boost safe turnout during a pandemic, but because “they want the uncertainty over the outcome of the election, so they can manipulate the results.” His guest, Revolver News’ Darren Beattie, then explained that “a very specific type of coup called the color revolution” is “unfolding before our eyes.”

A color revolution, Beattie explained, is “a regime change model favored by many in our national security apparatus, particularly against Eastern European countries to overthrow target regimes that they don't like.” (They were actually peaceful protests that toppled despots in places previously dominated by the Soviet Union.) And now, he claimed, that model is being applied to the United States, with “color revolution professionals” deliberately generating election fraud in order “to use lawfare in order to overturn the 2020 election.”

Right-wing media figures generally push a baseline level of apocalyptic rhetoric about the purported predations of progressives. But Trumpist media have reached a dangerous fever pitch over the last week or so, even by that standard. With polls showing Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden following the party conventions and the election only weeks away, commentators like Carlson are preparing their audiences to treat a Trump defeat as a left-wing coup -- and encouraging the president toward an authoritarian response.

Their deranged statements are fed by -- and fuel -- the president’s own unhinged remarks. Trump has portrayed himself as “saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country.” He describes his political opposition as supporters of “angry mobs,” “far-left fascism,” and “left-wing cultural revolution” so dangerous that he has even endorsed extrajudicial executions.And all the while, he’s been openly claiming that he could not possibly lose a fairly held election, and that any defeat would be the result of a Democratic election fraud conspiracy.

Carlson’s show is the most prominent vehicle fearmongering about a Democratic coup, but it is not the only one. A new special from The Blaze TV’s Glenn Beck is titled “CIVIL WAR: The Way America Could End in 2020,” and it details how “the Left is grooming us for an Eastern European-style color revolution this election.” His complex plot sprawls over three chalkboards and features mail-in voting as a vector for “something dangerous happening in November if we don’t act now.” (Beck praised Carlson during the program for the way he has been “putting the puzzle pieces together.”) The Trumpist publication The Federalist has offered up a similar “coup” theory.

The right-wing “coup” talk is the natural result of their demagoguery and dehumanization of the political opposition. Months ago, Trumpist media figures began warning that civilization itself was on the ballot in the fall, with Trump standing as the only thing preventing the left from making America “unrecognizable.” That type of rhetoric has only escalated, producing ever-more-inflammatory claims about what Trump’s defeat might mean to the safety and security of his supporters.

Over the last week or so alone:

Carlson described Black Lives Matter as “poison” that “we have to fight” because “if we’re going to survive as a country, we must defeat this.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn explained that he bought a gun in case “100 or 200 people bent on violence” show up in his suburb.

Fox’s Laura Ingraham and the pro-Trump podcaster Joe Rogan baselessly attributed the massive western wildfires to left-wing arsonists, blasting false rumors circulating on social media to millions of viewers and listeners.

Fox contributor Dan Bongino claimed that “we're watching the greatest nation in the history of sentient beings collapse in front of our face.”

Fox host Sean Hannity said that U.S. cities have become “war zones” and that there is a “war on police now.”

And Charlie Kirk, a frequent Fox guest and head of the Trumpist youth group Turning Point USA, warned on his podcast that if Trump loses, leftists seeking “bloodthirsty revenge” will “come for us all. They will come for your children.”

Some are taking their hatred of the left to lawless, authoritarian conclusions.

Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, said during an appearance earlier this month on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network that if Trump were to lose (illegitimately as a result of voter fraud, of course), he should try to retain power by having federal agents seize purportedly tainted ballots, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.

Fox’s Mark Levin,meanwhile, has also urged Trump to consider invoking the Insurrection Act -- but he argued that it would be needed if he wins. “He will have to use it to put down the enemy,” Levin explained on his radio show last week.

“The enemy is antifa, the enemy is Black Lives Matter, and the enemy is anybody that is going to use rioting, arson, looting, violence against our country to try to overthrow our country,” he added. “Those are traitors. That's treasonous.”

Extremist violent rhetoric is nothing new for right-wing media. Glenn Beck made it a staple of Fox News during President Barack Obama’s first term. Before the midterm elections, Fox warned its audience members that they needed to vote for Republicans to protect themselves from being killed by Democratic mobs.

But this sort of demagoguery can come with a heavy price. Beck’s rhetoric inspired an attempted domestic terror attack against one of his regular targets that ended with a firefight with law enforcement. And in the days before the 2018 midterm elections, a Trump superfan sent bombs to leftist leaders whom Fox commentators had attacked.

There’s still six weeks to go before the election. How will this spate of violent rhetoric end?

IN THIS ARTICLE

Voter Fraud and Suppression

Voter Suppression

Fox News fuels Trump’s dangerous Portland “law and order” strategy

07/21/20 3:52 PM EDT

Desperate Trumpists say civilization is on the ballot as Biden lead grows

06/24/20 11:06 AM EDT

How Tucker Carlson became the Fox host Trump listens to the most

07/08/20

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-right-wing-plan-to-steal-the-election-is-right-in-front-of-our-noses/

no lnx

The right-wing plan to steal the election is right in front of our noses

Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon September 17, 2020

There has been a ton of news about Bill Barr — official title, “Attorney General of the United States;” actual job, Donald Trump’s capo— crawling across cable news chyrons in recent days, so much so that it’s hard to keep track of it all. There’s that thing he said about quarantine restrictions being nearly as bad as slavery. And the thing where he whined about the Justice Department staffers that’s more interested in enforcing the law than protecting Trump’s political power. And where he compared such people to preschool children, for having the temerity to question his decisions.

All that is bad, but probably the worst news this week is a report from the New York Times that “Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition.”

He also asked federal prosecutors “to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish a police-free protest zone near the city’s downtown for weeks this summer.”

:{:{}:

This is especially alarming in light of Barr’s assertion, in the same speech where he made offensive comments about his own staff and about slavery, that he believes he has “virtually unchecked discretion” in determining what cases to prosecute.

Barr was talking about cases stemming from the protests in various cities over the summer. Although the vast majority of those protests were peaceful, there were a few incidents of violence and looting, though absolutely no evidence of plots to overthrow the U.S. government (which is what “sedition” means). Barr’s eagerness to overreact, however, is another alarming sign that he is exploring ways to assist Trump’s public and obvious plans to do whatever he can to steal the presidential election.

Thursday morning, in the midst of one of his lengthy morning Twitter tantrums, Trump hinted yet again at his plans to use phony claims about “fraud” as cover to keep election officials from counting all the ballots after Election Day:

[twt pix]

It’s a muddled mess of a tweet, but basically, he’s using scare quotes to suggest that votes by mail, at least by Democrats, are illegitimate. He’s also, in his usual manner, accusing his opponents of doing what he’s clearly planning to do, which in this case is to keep the ballots from being accurately tallied.

This is where Barr’s dark talk of “sedition” comes in.Should the votes in swing states be close — and every indication from polling is they will be — Trump will likely try to declare victory on the night of the election. After that, there will be a massive battle, as happened under similar circumstances in 2000, over how and whether to count all those mail-in ballots. Much of that will be in the courts, but there will be a street component, as well, as pro-democracy protesters will hit the streets to demand a full vote count, and election officials could face efforts to physically stop them from counting votes.

It’s increasingly clear that putting down those anticipated protesters and stopping the vote count is a priority for Trump and his allies. So there’s increasing talk from prominent Trump allies of a possible “insurrection” by the left after Election Day, and the need to use maximum force to put it down.

Michael Caputo, a 2016 Trump campaign aide and bug-eyed right-wing conspiracy theorist who was given the job of assistant secretary for public affairs at Health and Human Services, recently made news for a truly wacky set of utterances during a recent Facebook Live event. Among other things, Caputo accused government scientists of, yep, “sedition” and accused the left of plotting an insurrection, recommending that right-wingers “buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”

A wave of bad press compelled Caputo to take a leave of absence from his government job, citing vague medical concerns, but what he said directly echoes the rhetoric of Roger Stone, his longtime friend and fellow Trump confidant. Stone recently saw his sentence for felonies related to his role in the Russian conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election commuted by Trump, and has been at the forefront of trying to characterize efforts to count all the votes as an “insurrection” to be suppressed with violence.

During a segment on Infowars last week, Stone suggested that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act or declare martial law and that early voting and mail-in ballots in Nevada “should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state” to keep them from being counted. Stone claimed such ballots were fraudulent, but of course the real concern is that they’re legitimate — and that far too many of them will be cast for Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, Mark Levin — who is currently a radio TV host, but formerly worked with Barr at the Justice Department during the Reagan/Bush years — warned that the protests from the summer will “multiply by five or 10” and that Trump should declare them insurrections because they “need to be put down.”

:{:{}:

Levin was being vague about what he thinks might provoke such enormous protests, but it’s not hard to see what upcoming event might do such a thing: A close election that Trump will try to steal by suppressing vote-counting.

And let’s be clear that Barr himself is on board with this idea that mail-in ballots are inherently illegitimate and that fighting to keep them from being counted is therefore justified. Barr has repeatedly floated baseless claims that mail-in ballots are fraudulent or that foreign countries “could easily make counterfeit ballots.”

None of this, it cannot be stated strongly enough, is true. It’s a shameless pretext for what is likely an upcoming fight to get those ballots thrown out.

It’s tempting to see all this talk of “insurrection” and “sedition” from the right — including Trump’s own government officials — as nothing more than hyperbole from Republicans who are emotionally overwrought in the face of what looks to be a lost election. Unfortunately, as the scandal around slowdowns at the U.S. Postal Service and lawsuits over mail-in voting make clear, the Trump administration is doing more than talk. It’s actively pulling whatever levers it can to keep Democratic votes from being counted this November.

Once those ballots have been cast, the fight to make sure they’re counted is going to get rough — not just in the courts, but in the streets. Much could depend on the ability of the left to hit the streets, not just in protests to put pressure on election officials to finish the vote count, but possibly to physically protect officials who are counting votes from armed right-wingers whom Trump has whipped into a frenzy. All this chatter about “insurrection,” “riots” and “sedition” is an effort to preemptively characterize pro-democracy protesters as a threat, and to justify using violence to suppress them.

Remember, Trump was willing to use tear gas and baton assaults against peaceful protesters just to keep them from heckling him. There’s no telling how far he’ll go to keep those same peaceful protesters from messing with his efforts to steal an election.

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an 920

imperial AG?

AG Barr undermines his own DOJ prosecutors: ‘All prosecutorial power is vested in the attorney general’

Alex Henderson September 17, 2020

U.S. Attorney General William Barr had a lot to say when he spoke at Hillsdale College in Michigan on Wednesday, September 16, and he was highly critical of some of…

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sedition insurrection coup Jan 6 1

Background

Planning of storming

Events in the District of Columbia

"Save America March" in Washington, D.C.

Rioting in the Capitol building

Facial recognition company refutes viral conservative site's story used by GOP congressman to bolster bogus 'antifa' claim

Aggressive Tactics

Overkill

Tyrannical and un-American’: ACLU slams Barr for urging sedition charges against protesters

William Barr compares coronavirus restrictions to slavery

fox News analyst destroys Barr’s ‘absurd’ desire to charge rioters with sedition: ‘A bridge too far’