Fortress DC Shown To Be As Useful As The Patriot Act, Patriot Missiles And The Political Class

slate |  It turns out that Fortress D.C.—the capital city’s permanent, ever-expanding post-9/11 security-scape—is a myth. It’s a myth that residents have put up with because, in some ways, we want it to be true. It made us feel safer and it made us feel important, if only by proxy. (We also put up with it because we couldn’t say no.) And it gave some higher purpose to getting yelled at for unknowingly walking too close to a building or leaving your Swiss Army knife on your keychain when you walk through a metal detector. The scrutiny was frequently more intense for people of color.

Naïvely, I thought they were taking little things so seriously to demonstrate how gravely and ruthlessly they would dismantle a big thing. (After all, Fortress D.C. hasn’t had a problem being ruthless in the name of security in the fairly recent past.) But Wednesday’s insurrectionist siege revealed that there never was any higher purpose to us getting yelled at or detoured. It wasn’t an indication of any higher seriousness at all. It was instead the limits of the security’s reach.

When Fortress D.C. was tested, it failed: An angry mob marched to the Capitol, broke in, and stayed for hours. Unrushed, they sat in the House speaker’s office with their feet up. Unbothered, they walked out with a senator’s computer. I can barely believe these things happened, and not even in my wildest imagination would I have considered them possible before Wednesday. Fortress D.C. failed from a combination of factors that I’m sure will be investigated and enumerated, and people will resign and be fired if they haven’t already. It turns out that yelling at bike commuters, stray tourists, and kids sledding did not prove a successful deterrent to a mob invasion that was announced ahead of time. Whatever the security plan was, it wasn’t sufficient to secure the building, deter the crowd, or prevent tragic and senseless deaths, including that of one of the Capitol Police officers whose superiors failed to adequately prepare for a clearly hostile crowd. Fortress D.C. was so sure of itself it preemptively rejected offers to help. It took local police to get things back under control, and by that point the building and the myth of the building’s inviolability were completely wrecked.

The response will be to double down on more of the same. “Non-scalable” fences will cut off the U.S. Capitol for at least the next 30 days. There will inevitably be more bollards and more metal detectors. More street closures. More intrusions on daily life. More of the things that proved so easily surpassable when there was an effort to pass them. Fortress D.C. didn’t work, and as a consequence, it will get larger. Everyone will lose more public space, more access, and more mobility. And for what?

 

Patriot Act As Worthless As Patriot Missiles In A Genuine War On Terror

jacobin |  Nearly two decades since its initial passage in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act has continued to linger in our collective memory. Though few Americans probably remember much about its provisions or specifics, the Bush-era legislation long ago entered into general usage as an synonym for heavy-handed domestic surveillance and institutional overreach — the words “Patriot Act” now being practically synonymous with secrecy, eavesdropping, and the rolling back of civil liberties under the intentionally broad guise of “national security.”

Given the law’s contents and implications in practice, this reputation is well deserved. Passing the Senate with only a single dissenting vote, the Patriot Act dramatically expanded the power of federal authorities to spy on ordinary Americans with minimal oversight: enabling the FBI to obtain detailed information about citizens’ banking history and personal communications without having to seek judicial approval and even allowing “sneak and peek” searches of homes and offices. “The Patriot Act,” in the rather blunt words of a brief prepared by the ACLU, “[turned] regular citizens into suspects.”

Predictably, a great deal of law enforcement activity resulted from the ludicrously titled law (USA PATRIOT was a backronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”). According to data released by the Department of Justice, the FBI made hundreds of thousands of incursions into personal phone, computer, and financial records in the years immediately following its passage — the utility of these searches in identifying or preventing actual terrorist activities being debatable, to say the least.

Despite passing with widespread support, the Patriot Act was still considered extreme enough for lawmakers to attach sunset clauses to several of its major provisions, guaranteeing their expiry in lieu of congressional renewal (which, incidentally, eventually came under George W. Bush and again under Barack Obama).

One prominent Delaware lawmaker, however, felt it didn’t go far enough.

Ahead of the nearly unanimous October 25, 2001, Senate vote on the Patriot Act, Joe Biden was regularly claiming the law as his own, boasting in an interview with the New Republic: “I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill.” Biden wasn’t wrong. In fact, key parts of the Bush administration’s signature national security law were drawn from provisions contained in Biden’s own 1995 anti-terrorism bill. Originally called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, Jacobin’s Branco Marcetic summarized it contents as follows:

The bill made “terrorism” a new federal crime, allowed those charged with terrorism to be automatically detained before trial, outlawed donations to government-designated terrorist groups, allowed electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists, and created a special court to deport noncitizens accused of terrorism (ironically, when Bush had proposed a similar measure years before, Biden had denounced it as “the very antithesis of our legal system”). It also let the government use evidence from secret sources in those trials.

Calling the Patriot Act “measured and prudent” during an approving speech on the Senate floor, Biden would nonetheless lament the removal of sections from his 1995 bill that would have given police even more sweeping powers of surveillance.

Pelosi Appoints Fang Fang Bang Bang Swalwell As An Impeachment Manager...,

jonathanturley |  Speaker Nancy Pelosi shocked many in Washington by appointing Eric Swalwell as a house managers in the impeachment of President Donald Trump as he continues to face calls for his removal from the House Intelligence Committee due to his alleged intimate relationship with a Chinese spy.  Swalwell has been bunkered down to avoid questions from the media and the public, but he will now be one of those prosecuting the case against the President.

He allegedly first met the spy, Fang Fang or Christine Fang, in 2011. She not only raised money for Swalwell but reportedly had a personal relationship with him. She also pushed successfully for his office to accept an intern. He cut ties with her in 2015 after the FBI contacted him. Pelosi made no mention of the scandal in heralding Swalwell’s credentials:

“Congressman Swalwell serves on House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he chairs the Intelligence Modernization and Readiness Subcommittee, and on the Judiciary Committee,” Pelosi’s office said in a statement. “He is a former prosecutor and is the son and brother of law enforcement officers.  He is serving his fifth term in Congress.”

Usually a speaker selects House managers to reinforce the credibility and integrity of the case against a president. Even before the current scandal, Swalwell was viewed as a member who was a raw partisan. Last year, it was revealed that (despite long denials) the FBI did send an agent to report on his observations within the Trump campaign. As I discussed in a column, Democratic members spent years mocking allegations that there was any spying or surveillance of Trump or his campaign by the FBI. That was just a conspiracy theory. Now however there is proof that the FBI used a briefing in August 2016 of then candidate Trump to gather information for “Crossfire Hurricane,” the Russia investigation. It turns out that it did not really matter after all and Rep. Eric Swalwell did not miss a step. Swalwell declared that such targeting of the opposing party and its leading presidential candidate was “the right thing to do.” That’s it. A conspiracy theory suddenly becomes a commendable act.

Previously, Swalwell also declared that  if President Donald Trump refused to give Congress the documents and witnesses that it has demanded, he is clearly guilty of all charged offenses. Swalwell declared “We can only conclude that you’re guilty.”

Not Horny, Just Happily Singing "Bringing In The Sheaves"

WaPo  |  Over the past day, a lot of people have asked me how I feel. They are usually referring to my covid-19 diagnosis and my symptoms. I feel like I have a mild cold. But even more than that, I am angry.

I am angry that after I spent months carefully isolating myself, a single chaotic day likely got me sick. I am angry that several of our nation’s leaders were unwilling to deal with the small annoyance of a mask for a few hours. I am angry that the attack on the Capitol and my subsequent illness have the same cause: my Republican colleagues’ inability to accept facts.

When I left for Washington last week, it was my first trip there in several months. I had a list of things to accomplish, including getting my picture taken for the card I use when voting on the House floor. For the past two years, I appeared on that card completely bald as a result of the chemotherapy I underwent to eliminate the cancer in my right lung. It was because of that preexisting condition that I relied so heavily on the proxy voting the House agreed to last year, when we first began to understand the danger of covid-19.

I was nervous about spending a week among so many people who regularly flout social distancing and mask guidelines, but I could not have imagined the horror of what happened on Jan. 6.

To isolate as much as possible, I planned to spend much of my day in my apartment, shuttling to the House floor to vote. But the building shares an alley with the Republican National Committee, where, we’d later learn, law enforcement found a pipe bomb. I was evacuated from that location early in the afternoon.

The next best option would have been my office in the Cannon House Office Building, where just three of my staffers worked at their desks to ensure safe distancing. Before I arrived, security evacuated that building as well, forcing us to linger in the hallways and cafeteria spaces of the House complex. As I’m sure you can imagine, pushing the occupants of an entire building into a few public spaces doesn’t make for great social distancing. Twice, I admonished groups of congressional staff to put on their masks. Some of these staffers gave me looks of derision, but slowly complied.

Sexually Excited Watching The Corrupt Elderly Capitol Hill Parasites Cower...,

dailymail |  The woman interrupted Schumer during his press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday. During the encounter, she is heard calling Schumer, who is Jewish, a 'racist, anti-Semite'.

'You're nothing but a coward. Seeing you hide under your desk, I actually got sexually excited over it. That's how much I loathe you. That's how much I'm glad what they did.' 

As the woman continued to rant about the Capitol riot, Schumer's security was seen trying to get her to leave. 

'As long as there’s unrest, there’s going to be unrest in these streets, I don’t give a sh*t whether you believe me,' she yelled. 

'Six feet! Six feet! Stand down! Stand down! Stand down!' she screamed. 

Technology-Driven Tyranney Has No Vulnerabilities Exploitable By Nazi Insurrectionists

sicsempertyrannis |  The shape of what is coming to America is already clear; a technology driven tyranny that will make the Chinese leadership green with envy. Siri, Alexa and other unknown AI demons will read, listen and watch everyone, everywhere, always, not just for impure thoughts, let alone acts, but for even the suggestion that an unapproved thought process is occurring.

The initial outcome of such surveillance will be your appearance on lists. The "No fly" list, soon to be followed by the "No train", "No credit card", "No employment", "No drivers license", "No phone", "No internet access", "No Education", "No voice", "No Welfare" and of course the "No firearms" list. I call this process Human deplatforming.

The checks and balances have been replaced with (Bank) checks and (Bank) balances. The richest men in the world are overseeing this experiment which is going global quicker than you can say "Google". They are enabled by the University academics who as Raymond Asquith once observed are always prepared to provide an intellectual justification for vile acts if the price is right and journalists will laud said acts to the heavens as decent, moral doings if they want a paycheck next week from their masters.

The Legislature is bought. The Executive is bought. The Supreme Court are ninnies. The only thing standing in their way is soon to be Ex President Trump. I don't like his chances of becoming a rallying point, they are going to go after his children.

Oh Yes, but you have guns you say. Well those pasty faced, namby, pamby West Coast transgender wokeists, as you call them, may not be able to shoot straight but they have drones, swarming drones, robots and God knows what else in the way of weapons. They have satellite data and  almost perfect intelligence regarding your behaviour. They don't have to shoot accurately, they have machines to do that. They can and will commit unspeakable acts of murder and destruction before they turn off the monitor and jog off for a Latte. After all if you are not with us you are a domestic terrorist aren't you? There is no middle ground.

Russian-Backed Nazi Insurrectionists Cornered Themselves In The Capitol Building Last Week

consentfactory |  So, welcome to 2021! If last week was any indication, it is going to be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in which GloboCap reminds everyone who is actually in charge and restores “normality” throughout the world, or at least attempts to restore “normality,” or the “New Normality,” or the “Great Normal Reset,” or “The New Normal War on Domestic Terror” … or whatever they eventually decide to call it.

In any event, whatever they call it, GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They have had it with all this “populism” malarkey that has been going on for the last four years. Yes, that’s right, the party is over, you Russian-backed white supremacist terrorists! You Trump-loving, anti-mask grandmother killers! You anti-vax, election-fraud-conspiracy theorists! You deviants who refuse to follow orders, wear your damn masks, vote for who they tell you, and believe whatever completely nonsensical official propaganda they pour into your heads!

Oh, yes, you really did it this time! You stormed the goddamned US Capitol. You and your racist, Russia-backed army of bison-hat wearing half-naked actors have meddled with the primal forces of GloboCap, and now, by God, you will atone! No, do not try to minimize your crimes. You entered a building without permission! The building where America simulates democracy! You walked around in there waving silly flags! You went into the Chamber, into people’s offices! One of you actually put his filthy populist feet up on Pelosi’s desk … ON HER DESK! This aggression will not stand!

OK, before I go any further with this essay, I need to explain to my regular readers (in case it wasn’t already clear) that I’ve decided to forswear every word I’ve ever written, and all my principles, and my common sense, and join the remainder of my old leftist and liberal friends in the orgy of online hate and outrage they are currently mindlessly indulging in.

Yes, I realize this comes as a shock, but I have seen the GloboCap writing on the wall, and I don’t want to … you know, get ideologically “cleansed,” or charged with “extremism,” or “insurrectionism,” or “domestic terrorism,” or “populism,” or whatever. I’m already in enough trouble as it is for not playing ball with their “apocalyptic plague,” and whatever else I am, I am certainly no martyr, and I have a career in the arts to consider, so I have decided to listen to my inner coward and join the goose-stepping global-capitalist mob, which is why this column sounds slightly out of character.

There Was No Coup Attempt But There Will Be An Authoritarian Clampdown

mtracey |  There was no real “coup attempt,” despite incessant politician and media histrionics to that effect. Just a pitiful outburst that was quickly dispersed.

It was clear within about ten minutes of the intrusion that the most severe consequences would stem not from the incident itself, but the deliberately-stoked over-reaction. The bipartisan political and media class, whether cynically or sincerely, is broadcasting their steadfast conviction that this was something like a “MAGA Terrorist Insurrection” — which is literally how it’s being described on CNN. Under such allegedly extreme circumstances, of course extreme remedial action is going to be demanded.

Few entities capitulate to upswells of political hysteria more reliably than the tech companies. Knowing that there will soon be a Democratic presidential administration and Congress to appease, they launched this week what is the most drastic corporate censorship offensive in modern history. Not only was Trump banished from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter — the latter being his primary communications platform (for better or worse) — multiple high-profile Trump allies were likewise purged. Steve Bannon was nuked from YouTube. Trump and his supporters are being neutralized online not because he currently poses any kind of bonafide “threat” to the Republic, but because his enemies are desperate for revenge. And they have been gifted with a perfect “crisis” that will justify their getting it.

Rep. Lauren Boebert Out'Chere Like Sammy Doing THE MOST!!!

patheos |  Domestic Terrorist: Rep. Lauren Boebert, a newly elected member of congress and a big QAnon supporter, is facing calls for her arrest after live-tweeting Nancy Pelosi’s location to terrorists as they stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this week.

Raw Story reports:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), a gun-toting supporter of the QAnon movement, is facing backlash after she was accused of live-tweeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA)

As Trump supporters were storming the Capitol, Boebert warned the terrorists that Pelosi had been moved, tweeting:

The Speaker has been removed from the chambers.

Before tweeting that Pelosi had moved, she had tweeted:

We were locked in the House Chambers.

In addition, Boebert tweeted encouragement to the domestic terrorists before the assault, declaring:

location during the attack on Capitol Hill last week.

KRDO |  Friday at noon, the organization Rural Colorado United is holding rallies at newly elected U.S. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's offices all across her district, including Pueblo, calling for her resignation in the wake of Wednesday's riot at the US Capitol.

Former CO State Rep @Bri4CO at @laurenboebert rally: pic.twitter.com/kUZtiV8jxJ

— Dan Beedie KRDO (@BeedieonTV) January 8, 2021

Chants of Lauren Boebert has to go outside of the US Congresswoman’s Pueblo office. pic.twitter.com/da1U1tBnKP

— Dan Beedie KRDO (@BeedieonTV) January 8, 2021

On Wednesday, Boebert objected to the certification of the 2020 Presidential election results in key battleground states, specifically objecting to Arizona's electoral votes. However, all of the states independently certified their votes before Boebert's objection.

"Madame Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now and I promised to be their voice," said Boebert on the floor of the House of Representatives during the debate over an objection to the Electoral votes in the state of Arizona. "It is my separate but equal obligation to weigh in on this election and object."

Not long after Boebert's speech, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed U.S. Capitol Building after a rally, attempting to stop the certification of the election for President-elect Joe Biden. Five individuals, including a U.S. Capitol Policeman, died as a result of the riot.

 

Do You Know How Much Damage One Lil Conk-Wearing Dindu Can Cause?

thedailybeast |   Two weeks before thousands of Trump rioters breached Congress, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander said his group wasn’t violent—“yet.”

“One of our organizers in one state said, ‘We’re nice patriots, we don’t throw bricks,’” Alexander told a crowd at a Dec. 19 rally at Arizona’s state capitol. “I leaned over and I said, ‘Not yet. Not yet!’ Haven’t you read about a little tar-and-feathering? Those were second-degree burns!”

Alexander, who has described himself as one of the “official originators” of the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, went on to use “yet” as a code word for violence. Then Alexander told the Phoenix crowd about his plans for Washington.

“We’re going to convince them to not certify the vote on January 6 by marching hundreds of thousands, if not millions of patriots, to sit their butts in D.C. and close that city down, right?” Alexander said. “And if we have to explore options after that…‘yet.’ Yet!”

Alexander’s supporters cheered, yelling threats like “noose!” and “nothing’s off the table!”

Alexander led a host of activists in ratcheting up the rhetoric ahead of Congress’ certification of the electoral votes, threatening to “1776” opponents of Trump’s re-election. Now that five people, including a Capitol Police officer, are dead, however, Alexander has gone into hiding, and the website promoting his Jan. 6 rally has been wiped from the internet.

Alexander is defiant, saying he won’t “take an iota of blame that does not belong to me.”

“I didn’t incite anything,” Alexander said in a video posted Friday to Twitter. “I didn’t do anything.”

In reality, even as Alexander claimed his supporters were peaceful, he repeatedly raised the prospect of using violence in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6.

On Sunday night, Twitter banned Alexander’s personal account and an account for “Stop The Steal.” Alexander didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Alexander is a convicted felon, after pleading guilty to felony property theft in 2007 and felony credit card abuse in 2008. Alexander first appeared in conservative politics in the Tea Party era under the name “Ali Akbar,” organizing a group called the National Bloggers’ Club that was tied to “shady data collection operations.”

In the Trump era, now using a new name, Alexander emerged as an idiosyncratic, trash-talking MAGA die-hard affiliated with figures like InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, anti-Muslim Trump booster Laura Loomer, blundering provocateur Jacob Wohl, and Trump ally Roger Stone.

Before Trump’s 2020 election defeat, Alexander was perhaps best known for Donald Trump Jr. retweeting his groundless claim that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is not an “American Black.” He was invited to the White House for Trump’s “Social Media Summit” with various right-wing internet figures, and began frequently wearing orange clothes, claiming God had given him a message that the color had special significance for 2020.

Lawd HaMercy: Sammy Davis Jr. Reincarnated To Help "Stop The Steal"?

bayoubrief |  After amassing more than 350,000 followers, Facebook banned the group “Stop the Steal” once members began posting calls to incite violence at planned protests across the country. 

The protests were the brainchild of Ali Alexander, a controversial far-right operative who boasts more than 140,000 followers on Twitter, where he’s simply @ali.

“Alexander appears to be involved with Stop The Steal both through his tweets promoting it and through his links to one of the websites boosting it,” Mother Jones reported Friday. “Stopthesteal.us’s domain is registered to Vice and Victory, a possibly defunct political consultancy he’s affiliated with. After clicking the site’s donate button, visitors are prompted with the option to donate money to one of several cryptocurrency addresses associated with Alexander, or given links to his Paypal, CashApp, and Amazon wishlist.”

Here in Louisiana, Alexander is better known by his legal name, Ali Akbar. Although he now lives in Texas, for the past four years, Alexander resided in Baton Rouge, a fact that has gone virtually unnoticed in the torrent of coverage he’s recently generated.

In June 2019, Alexander made national headlines for a racist tweet that asserted Kamala Harris was not “an American Black” because her father was Jamaican. His comment was retweeted and then later deleted by the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr. The next month, Alexander was one of several controversial figures invited to the White House’s “social media summit.”

There’s more.

“According to a 2018 Politico report, the night before the 2016 election, ​a PAC advised by Alexander received a $60,000 donation from hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer​, the pro-Trump billionaire,” Right Wing Watch’s Jared Holt reported in September. “Alexander has associated with far-right figures including Unite the Right white supremacist attendee Matt Colligan, and made a habit of noting when members of the media he criticizes are Jewish, ​according to The Observer.”

In an August profile of Alexander, the Daily Dot reported that he had “found a niche among the likes of anti-Muslim activist and Republican Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer and blundering political fraudster Jacob Wohl….The trio went to Minneapolis in June 2019 to film a documentary called Importing Ilhan, which was severely mocked online for lacking credibility. The video they produced was aimed at proving Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) had married her brother. While filming, they also wore bulletproof jackets only to turn out to report fake death threats against themselves to authorities.” 

Weeks before the election, Alexander promoted a website that floated the bogus claim that Joe Biden secretly suffered from Parkinson’s disease.

 

Rebellious Rednecks In Hotter Water As Internet "Researcher" Downloaded All Of Parler's Posts...,

great job, everyone pic.twitter.com/22gooTH4sl

— crash override (@donk_enby) January 11, 2021

gizmodo |  In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by their Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, among other sources, Parler is one of a several apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power. 

Hoping to create a lasting public record for future researchers to sift through, @donk_enby began by archiving the posts from that day. The scope of the project quickly broadened, however, as it became increasingly clear that Parler was on borrowed time. Apple and Google announced that Parler would be removed from their app stores because it had failed to properly moderate posts that encouraged violence and crime. The final nail in the coffin came Saturday when Amazon announced it was pulling Parler’s plug.  

Operating on little sleep, @donk_enby began the work of archiving all of Parler’s posts, ultimately capturing around 99 percent of its content. In a tweet early Sunday, @donk_enby said she was crawling some 1.1 million Parler video URLs. “These are the original, unprocessed, raw files as uploaded to Parler with all associated metadata,” she said. Included in this data tranche, now more than 56 terabytes in size, @donk_enby confirmed that the raw video files include GPS metadata pointing to exact locations of where the videos were taken.

@donk_enby later shared a screenshot showing the GPS position of a particular video, with coordinates in latitude and longitude.

The privacy implications are obvious, but the copious data may also serve as a fertile hunting ground for law enforcement. Federal and local authorities have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days accused of taking part in the Capitol riot, where a Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, was fatally wounded after being struck in the head with a fire extinguisher.

@donk_enby describes herself as hacker, in the sense that she’s “someone with a creative, but skeptical attitude toward technology,” to paraphrase a definition offered by the Chaos Computer Club, Europe’s largest hacker association. “I want this to be a big middle finger to those who say hacking shouldn’t be political,” she said. @donk_enby work has aided other researchers, including one at New York University’s Center for Cybersecurity.

@donk_enby, whose efforts are documented on the website ArchiveTeam.org, said the data will eventually be hosted by the Internet Archive. (The two sites are not affiliated.)

 

After They Get Done With These Rebellious Rednecks Jimmy Dore - They'll Be Coming For You!

BAR |  It must be noted that back in 2005-06, when Pelosi was gearing up for her first successful run for Speaker, she prevented Democrats from holding hearings on the Katrina catastrophe in fear of identifying the Party too closely with Black issues, and then forbade the Congressional Black Caucus and all other Democrats from attending Republican hearings on Katrina. All of the Black Caucus meekly complied with her diktat – except for Atlanta Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who was shunned by her fellow Black congresspersons as a result. As Peter Gamble and I reported in The Black Commentator , Pelosi “was able to convince the Congressional Black Caucus, as a body, to stand down in the face of a horrific crisis: the displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents of New Orleans.” The Black Caucus’s political irrelevance and impotence can be dated to that debacle. AOC and her Squad are on the same path – and the slope is much steeper in this era of accelerating national and imperial decay. 

“The death of 40 to 60 thousand Americans a year due to lack of healthcare, and 300,000-plus Covid-19 fatalities to date, is corporate-inflicted violence on a horrific scale.”

In her self-pitying funk, the Bronx fashion-plate and champion tweeter -- a rival of Trump, in that regard – sounded no different than the standard “because…Trump” Democrat, blaming the outgoing Orange Menace for her own political cowardice: “[I]n a time when the Republican Party is attempting an electoral coup and trying to overturn the results of our election, this is not just about being united as a party. It's about being united as people who have basic respect for the rule of law.” Having nothing to offer their “base,” Democrats make Trump the excuse for their refusal to buck the corporate masters. What will they do when the Orange Ogre is finally gone?

Doubtless, they will blame the Russians and a “handful of outspoken left-wing activists,” as MSN  dubbed the #ForceTheVote advocates, for undermining the smooth workings of “American democracy.” However, the exodus of the leftmost ranks of the Democratic Party has finally begun, and will accelerate in the excruciatingly unending Covid-19 crisis, and as the post-Covid corporate economic order emerges with the full collaboration of the Democratic Party. The biggest benefactor of the New Year’s revolt is the Movement for a People’s Party, coordinated by Nick Branna, which vows to run a slate of congressional candidates in 2022 and mount a presidential bid in 2024. For the first time in this century, significant numbers of young people of all races – most of them unabashed Democrats only yesterday, it seems – are expressing raw hatred for the Democrats, who are richly deserving of the utmost contempt. 

“Democrats make Trump the excuse for their refusal to buck the corporate masters.”

Having witnessed and participated in the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States in the past year, these young activists correctly see elections as only one aspect of “politics.” Indeed, the corporate monopoly has rendered electoral projects the narrowest, most circumscribed arena of U.S. political expression. Left political parties’ electoral activity must be an extension of grassroots and “street” advocacy. 

Covid-19 ensured the demise of Trump and has laid bare the anti-people nature of racial capitalism and the corporate duopoly that serves the oligarchs. Pelosi and her Democrats have shown themselves to be one with the Republicans in enforcing the Race to the Bottom that capitalists have imposed, worldwide, and whose noose has been tightening in the United States for two generations. Medicare for All is anathema to both corporate parties because it would go far towards deprivatizing one-sixth of the U.S. economy but, just as importantly, it would greatly diminish the precarity and desperation of workers who fear they must take and hold any job that provides health insurance. The oligarchy understands perfectly that its super-profits are derived from super-exploitation of the precarity-stricken workers of the planet, and on the deepening desperation of its own workforce.

Retired Capitol Police Officer "I Think They Allowed Them To Do What They Did...,"

WSWS |   In a telling interaction on CNN Friday, retired capitol policeman Theortis Jones said, “I think they allowed them to do what they did.” The complacent moderator failed to ask who gave the orders to stand back. The interview with the 37-year veteran was ended abruptly soon after he added, “They were a part of allowing these people to come up to the Capitol the way they did.”

The Democratic leadership is boasting that it is conducting an investigation into the death of the police officer who was killed in the riot. But this “investigation” will be conducted by the Capitol Police and the FBI—the very institutions that must themselves be subject to a thorough investigation for their role in this ongoing plot.

The Capitol Police’s self-investigation comes even as Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren reported that the chief of the Capitol Police lied to her by stating that the National Guard had been called up before January 6. The chief “was not truthful to me,” Lofgren told the press. “It was just not true. They had not been called.”

New details are also coming to light showing how close Wednesday’s riot came to ending in a massacre or mass kidnapping event. PBS Newshour correspondent Lisa Desjardins told NPR yesterday that she realized the danger she was in when she noticed police had abandoned their posts inside the Capitol building. She was barricaded in a room with several congressional representatives who held hands and prayed, worried that they were about to be killed.

An aide close to Vice President Mike Pence also told CNN yesterday that the Trump administration did not contact Pence or take any measures to ensure his safety. Pence was with his wife, daughter and brother in the Capitol building Wednesday as he presided over the electoral vote certification. CNN wrote:

Several of the violent Trump supporters who were rampaging the US Capitol were heard screaming ‘where’s Mike Pence,’ the source said, frightening the vice president and his family. Yet, the President and his top aides barely lifted a finger to check in on Pence to make sure he and his family were unharmed, the source added.

Online, fascist militias are now preparing for an even larger event on Inauguration Day. Hampton Stall, the founder of MilitiaWatch and an expert on the US far-right, told the World Socialist Web Site:

There’s a lot of really cryptic chatter and overt discussions of violence around the January 6 event, but a lot of inauguration-related organizing is related to a few different dynamics that have been planned for at least a month’s time. One that stands out is the Million Militia March apparently organized for 20 January at the Capitol. Propaganda and event fliers have been circulating around militia chat groups.

Militia members are also making plans for protests at various state capitols in the days leading up to the inauguration. Stall added that while Wednesday’s demonstration in Washington DC was largely unarmed, this may change on January 20:

There are also multiple state capital events organized for the 17th, 18, 19th and 20th. Fliers for these events have been quite mixed as far as indications as to the specific ideological tendencies of those organizing, whether it be ‘2A’ activism, overt militia organizing, Boogaloo, or something else entirely. The one commonality is that all are expressly right-wing in nature and often point to a militant or armed gathering.

Exactly one year before the date of the scheduled inauguration, on January 20, 2020, the largest armed demonstration in US history took place in Richmond, Virginia involving roughly 10,000 fascists. In December, Trump’s fascist adviser Stephen Miller said, “The only date in the Constitution is January 20,” adding that this was the “deadline” for action to protect Trump’s presidency.

Grassroots Activism Will Be Censored On Social Media

caitlinjohnstone |  Patriot Act 2.0 will be rolled out with a lot of mindless bleating about white supremacists and fighting fascism and the actual policies and laws put into place will have virtually nothing to do with any of those things. It will be geared at preventing the revolutionary changes that need to be pushed for via grassroots activism in the United States.

Listening to US politicians and pundits the last few years you’d assume it’s been raining actual 9/11s and Pearl Harbors in America 24/7.

“Our democracy has been attacked!” screamed the political establishment that just forced you to choose between Donald Trump and Democrat Donald Trump for president.

Saying there’s been an attack on American democracy is like saying there’s been an attack on Kazakhstan’s fjords.

Liberals learned the words “coup” and “insurrection” like five seconds ago and now they are academic experts on both of these things.

The narrative managers’ ability to move liberals and progressives from “Defund the police” to “MOAR POLICING” in just a few months was even more impressive than their ability to move them from “Believe Women” and #MeToo to “Tara Reade is a lying grifter”.

Here’s how politicians, media and government could eliminate conspiracy theories if they really want to:

• Stop lying all the time
• Stop killing people
• Stop promoting conspiracy theories (eg Russiagate)
• Stop doing evil things in secret
• End government opacity
• Stop conspiring

To support the censorship of online speech is to support the authority of monopolistic tech oligarchs to exert more and more global control over human communication. Regardless of your attitude toward whoever happens to be getting deplatformed today, supporting this is self-destructive.

Manuel Lopez-Obrador: In The Face Of Social Media Censorship - Alternative Media Is Necessary

jornada |  Mexico City. Warning of an overbearing attitude by Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg in the face of the events in the United States - and the suspension of Donald Trump's accounts on that company's platforms - President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that it is important to create alternative media as a counterweight to the actions of executives from social networks and traditional media.

Answering a question, related to what happened in the neighboring country, he said that his government will support alternative media, to guarantee the people the right to information, in the face of the risk that the traditional media and the networks tend to believe in a global media power, a Holy Inquisition that censors and silences.

"In all public media there must be possibilities for the work of communicators, of journalists. Of course, to the extent of our possibilities, but we should try to make sure that there are these opportunities to participate in public media.

"We have to be creating alternative means of communication, this thing that you point out as a blackout, this thing that they did in the United States is a bad sign, it is a bad omen that private companies decide to silence, censor. This goes against freedom, so let's not create a world government with the power to control social networks, a world media power. Furthermore, a censorship court like the Holy Inquisition but for the management of public opinion," he said.

It is very serious, he added.

"Of course we must be thinking about options, alternatives, because I do believe that it was a before and after in the case of social networks what happened a few days ago.

"Then I read the letter from the owner of Facebook and I felt it with much arrogance, talking about their rules and what? Freedom? And the right to information? And the role of legally constituted authorities," he said.

Then, said President López Obrador, we do have to think about that "not about trusting us because we already suffered for a long time what was the control of conventional media, social networks appear, it is a new stage, we all celebrate them.

"I still maintain that they are blessed social networks. But these recent events should concern us and we should not stop creating alternative media and always allow the people to be informed, to guarantee the right to information," he said.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Backchannel Bullshidt From A Roided-Out Ewing Ave-Pulaski Rd-Aurora-Elgin-Joliet Man...,

Some cats will never get it through their thick skulls that I grew up with, fought and reconciled with, and continue to live and work with - the rednecked salt of the earth out'chere deep in flyover country. I judge strictly by the demonstrated content of man's character. Everything else is, as they say, STRICTLY CONVERSATION. 

The .0001% is shitting its degenerate pants about now after last Wednesday's outburst. Has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump. Jeezus H. Phukking Christ!!! How ruh-tarded would one have to be to even pretend that this is about T-Rump?!?!?! Here's one such ruh-tard. Former California Gubernator and adulterous sack of fetid shidt, Ah-nold Schwarz-a-neggar...., 

 

Along with what I think about his monkey tail. 

 

and this trifling muhphukkah really fixed his mouth to talk about public service and integrity...., 

jes dayyum!!! 

COMPLETE, TOTAL, AND ABJECT LACK OF CONSCIOUS SELF-AWARENESS, CONSCIENCE, AND PERSONAL INTEGRITY!!!

The Guardians Of Inclusive Capitalism

wikipedia |  In 2012, the Henry Jackson Society created a task force for Inclusive Capitalism Initiative project in order to start a transatlantic conversation about the growing income inequalities and their threat to the capitalist system.^[20]

In 2014, Conference on Inclusive Capitalism, co-hosted by the City of London and E. L. Rothschild holding company, was held in London where the concept of inclusive capitalism was discussed as a practical measure.^[21] At another conference in 2015 the "Pathway to Action" was brainstormed.^[22] In the same 2015 year, the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism was registered in the United States as a not-for-profit organization.^[23] Lynn Forester de Rothschild became the founding CEO of the Coalition. At the 2016 Conference on Inclusive Capitalism in New York City, participants expressed commitment to promote inclusive economic growth.^[24] Members of the Coalition expressed a belief that all stakeholders, including business and society, should be engaged in the enactment of an inclusive capitalism agenda^[25][26]

In 2019, the Embankment Project for Inclusive Capitalism (EPIC) undertaken by the Coalition together with Ernst & Young reported its findings in a white paper. It was a pioneering effort to "develop a framework and identify meaningful metrics to report on long-term and inclusive value creation activities that heretofore have not been captured on traditional financial statements".^[27]

In 2020, the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, a partnership of the Coalition with the Vatican, was created.^[28][29][30]

Some pundits express optimism that it is possible to remake capitalism in a more inclusive and responsible way.^[31]

After January 20th The Clampdown Will Begin In Earnest

caitlinjohnstone |  Biden has announced plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.

“Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal reports.

Did you know that Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?

The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks. Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.

This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:

“Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode ‘constitutional and statutory due process protections’ and would ‘authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.’

Biden’s bill was never put to a vote, but after 9/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Capitol Hill Protest Completely Revealed The Shriveled State Of American Governance

unz  |   I think for most of us who were watching, we simply had an overwhelming feeling of Schadenfreude — seeing the political elite that’s been selling us down the river and making our lives hell for decades for once the ones cowering in fear. This was most especially true of the Democrats, who got a taste of their own medicine after endlessly excusing and justifying BLM and Antifa violence over the past four years. Only a few weeks before, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted an ill-timed message justifying protests, writing, “The thing that critics of activists don’t get is that they tried playing the ‘polite language’ policy game and all it did was make them easier to ignore . . . The whole point of protesting is to make people uncomfortable. Activists take that discomfort with the status quo and advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small and grows. To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable . . . that’s the point.” On this, we can agree with her.

 

What if activists aren’t PR firms for politicians & their demands are bc police budgets are exploding, community resources are shrinking to bankroll it, & ppl brought this up for ages but it wasn’t until they said “defund” that comfortable people started paying attn to brutality

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 2, 2020

But for me, I was no less happy to see the Republicans on the run. After all, it is they who have been stoking the anger and resentment of populist Americans, secure in their belief that they had conjured a monster they completely controlled and that they could endlessly exploit for their own purposes no matter what they did. Well, that monster turned around and bit them on their fleeing asses on Wednesday. The “people,” whom they love to claim they represent, went from being an ideological abstraction to an angry mob after they felt cheated and decided to take matters into their own hands. It’s important to remember that, according to reports, what first inspired the protesters to descend on the Capitol was when word reached them that Pence had refused to challenge the certification of the Electoral College result. They weren’t just angry at the Democrats; they were angry at the whole lot of them.

Just as among conservatives, there are those on the Dissident Right who see this event as a tragedy, primarily because they believe that this protest has discredited the populist movement. To such people, I can only respond: What were you getting out of being well-behaved? It was already clear before the Capitol occupation that no real attempt was being made to win justice regarding the election results. Those Republicans who have backed Trump in his efforts to challenge Biden’s alleged victory have, for the most part, only done so because they want to be able to tell their Trump-loving supporters that they did their best, but that, in the end, the Democrats cheated them. I’m quite sure that they’ve known for weeks that they had already done all they could do through legal procedures; what they’ve been doing in the meantime was merely theater for their constituents. None of them really wanted to challenge the establishment; they are the establishment. So, from our point of view, what is there to be gained by backing a lost cause? A lost cause that, moreover, didn’t offer much to us to begin with, given that every Dissident Rightist has been deeply disappointed in the Trump administration? Sure, a Trump win was preferable to a Biden win from our perspective, but it’s hardly worth quietly and passively going down with the ship for him.

Of course, even before the Capitol had been cleared, I started seeing the conspiracy theorists coming out of the woodwork to claim that this was yet another “false flag” event, just like every other historical event to have occurred over the past 70 years. The main support for this claim that I’ve seen is that it has been asserted that known Antifa members have been identified in the crowd that occupied the Capitol. Even if this is true, I don’t see what difference this makes. People in Antifa are known to be attracted to violence and chaos, so it’s hardly surprising that a few of them may have shown up to take part.

 

"I Didn't Mean It, I Didn't Mean It!!!" Another LARPing Middle-Aged Pranksta Repents...,

newyorker |  In an interview, Brock confirmed that he was the man in the photos and videos. He denied that he held racist views and echoed Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, saying that he derived his understanding of the matter principally from social media. He told me that he had gone to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate peacefully. “The President asked for his supporters to be there to attend, and I felt like it was important, because of how much I love this country, to actually be there,” he said. Brock added that he did not identify as part of any organized group and claimed that, despite the scenes of destruction that day, he had seen no violence. When he arrived at the Capitol, he said, he assumed he was welcome to enter the building.

Brock denied that he had entered Pelosi’s office suite, saying that he “stopped five to ten feet ahead of the sign” bearing her title that insurrectionists later tore down and brandished. However, in the ITV video, he appears to emerge from the suite. Brock said that he had worn tactical gear because “I didn’t want to get stabbed or hurt,” citing “B.L.M. and Antifa” as potential aggressors. He claimed that he had found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor. “I wish I had not picked those up,” he told me. “My thought process there was I would pick them up and give them to an officer when I see one. . . . I didn’t do that because I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them.” He also said that he was opposed to vandalizing the building, and was dismayed when he learned of the extent of the destruction. “I know it looks menacing,” he told me. “That was not my intent.”

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

Brock, a fifty-three-year-old father of three who lives in an affluent suburb of Dallas, graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1989, with a major in international relations and affairs. In a LinkedIn profile that Brock recently deleted, he described himself as having served as a chief operations inspector and flight commander with the 706th Fighter Squadron, at one point leading more than two dozen pilots. Brock told me that he served in Afghanistan and, in a non-combat capacity, in Iraq, and that for his service he received three Meritorious Service Medals, six Air Medals, and three Aerial Achievement Medals. In a statement, Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokesperson, said, “This individual is no longer serving in the Air Force Reserve. He retired in 2014. As a private citizen, the Air Force no longer has jurisdiction over him.” Brock now works for Hillwood Airways, a Texas-based private aviation company.

Brock’s family members and his friend said that his service in the Air Force was central to his identity. Several of Brock’s e-mail addresses and social-media accounts featured his call sign and military nickname, Torch. One family member said that Brock derived “this weird sense of power” from his time as a military pilot, along with a Manichean world view. “He used to tell me that I only saw the world in shades of gray, and that the world was black and white,” the other family member said. “He doesn’t understand the fallout and the people he’s hurting. And I can’t imagine what he was doing there with zip ties, or what he thought he was going to accomplish.”

slate  |   Call the zip ties by their correct name: The guys were carrying flex cuffs, the plastic double restraints often used by police in mass arrest situations. They walked through the Senate chamber with a sense of purpose. They were not dressed in silly costumes but kitted out in full paramilitary regalia: helmets, armor, camo, holsters with sidearms. At least one had a semi-automatic rifle and 11 Molotov cocktails. At least one, unlike nearly every other right-wing rioter photographed that day, wore a mask that obscured his face.

These are the same guys who, when the windows of the Capitol were broken and entry secured, went in first with what I’d call military-ish precision. They moved with purpose, to the offices of major figures like Nancy Pelosi and then to the Senate floor. What was that purpose? It wasn’t to pose for photos. It was to use those flex cuffs on someone.

In October, the FBI and state authorities charged 13 men with plotting to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan. Members of that plot attended protests at the Michigan Capitol in April, real planners of violence mixing easily with those for whom guns are fun protest props. The plotters discussed a summary execution—“knock on the door,” one wrote in the group chat, “and when she answers it just cap her”—but settled on a kidnapping, pulled off while police were distracted by a nearby explosion. Think of that plot, as these men surely did, as a dress rehearsal for what the zip-tie guys wanted to accomplish at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

 

The Price Of Ignoring Capitol Hill Protesters Will Be Civil War

theblaze |  Here, I guess, I should apologize for not joining the rest of the media in feigning outrage and calling for the trespassers to be tried for treason. But I'm neither outraged nor feeling vengeful because of their act of civil disobedience.

I understand it. It was an inevitable repercussion from 2020 and what we've all witnessed the last decade. It was Sir Isaac Newton's third law come to life. 

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

For four years now, the billionaire and millionaire elites who control academia, the mainstream media, politics, popular culture, and the sports world have framed Trump supporters as racist deplorables worthy of elimination from society.

These same elites spent the past decade elevating Michael Brown, George Floyd, Jacob Blake, Rayshard Brooks, Eric Garner, and other resisting criminal suspects to icon status while simultaneously raising bail money for protesters willing to riot, loot, burn, and vandalize in the name of racial justice.

This blatant hypocrisy will not go unchallenged. You cannot ignore the desires, concerns and feelings of 74 million citizens. You cannot write them off as Nazis and answer all their complaints with allegations of racism or sexism. That's fascism.

At this point, the Deplorables should be commended for their restraint. Antifa and Black Lives Matter search, burn, and destroy well into the wee hours. The Deplorables returned to their hotel rooms by nightfall and watched our lawmakers return to work inside the Capitol by 8 p.m.

The critics say President Trump provoked Wednesday's political "violence." His refusal to concede a corrupt election baited his followers to overrun the Capitol with flags, put Ashli Babbitt in harm's way, and do enough property damage to delay the Electoral College confirmation three or four hours.

Fine. Guilty as charged.

But our president for the next two weeks was not Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone provocateur. He had plenty of collaborators. They work on all the major and cable news and sports networks. They play in the NFL and NBA. They represent both political parties, hold high positions in Hollywood, at Netflix, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The people wagging their fingers the hardest at Trump and the Deplorables sanctioned, financed, and promoted political violence throughout all of 2020 and for much of the past decade.

 

The Difference Between Insurrection and Resistance Is Corporate Sponsorship...,

newyorker |   This is precisely what Trump wanted. It was Trump who repeatedly called on his supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., for the joint session, after his efforts to overturn the election through the courts had failed. It was Trump who repeatedly told those same supporters that the election had been stolen, and that the result needed to be reversed. And it was Trump who ignored reports that some of his supporters were planning to go far beyond the peaceful protest that he claimed to be calling for. Online forums popular with Trump supporters were “filled with violent rhetoric directed at a wide range of perceived enemies,” the Anti-Defamation League warned. “In response to a user who wondered what happens if Congress ignores ‘evidence’ that President Trump won the election, a user wrote, ‘Storm the capitol.’ ”

Before the mob broke into the Capitol, Trump addressed a large group of his supporters who had gathered on the Ellipse, the park just south of the White House. Referring to the election, he declared, “There has never been anything like this—it’s a pure theft—in American history.” Later on, after repeating a long litany of bogus claims about voter fraud, he said, “This is a criminal enterprise.” He ended his speech by saying, “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Ave. . . . We’re going to try and give our Republicans—the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help—we’re going to try and give them kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country.”

For the past four years, there has been a tendency in some quarters to downplay Trump’s incendiary rhetoric. Ever since the election, it has been incessant. With Mitch McConnell and other leading Republicans pledging to accept the election results, Trump’s attempt to bully Congress into submission was—and is—destined to fail. But, when you are dealing with would-be authoritarians like Trump, it is a mistake to focus exclusively on the formal institutions of government; the danger comes from outside the system.

It’s been clear all along that Trump’s supporters took his claims of voter fraud seriously. And when he complained to them that McConnell and even Mike Pence, Trump’s ultra-loyal Vice-President, were preparing to sell him out, they were perfectly willing to believe it. They were even willing to storm the Capitol and terrorize members of Congress on Trump’s behalf. That is how democracies perish. Fist tap Dale for psionically sensing my struggle and turning this liminal foetus into a complete, coherent, and finished thought.

Sen. Josh Hawley Defunded And Disavowed For Tryna Get Off The Fist Up His Sock-Puppet Ass...,

newsweek  |  A Missouri businessman who spent millions of dollars funding Sen. Josh Hawley's political campaigns has disavowed the lawmaker in a damning statement, accusing him of inciting the riot in the U.S. Capitol and calling for his censure.

The president and CEO of Tamko Building Products, David Humphreys, had been a major donor for the Missouri Republicans, with his family giving $4.4 million of the $9.2 million that Hawley raised for his campaign to become attorney general in 2016.

His family also donated about $2 million to independent groups who backed Hawley's bid to become a senator in 2018.

But in a statement to the Missouri Independent, Humphreys expressed his disgust with Hawley for backing President Donald Trump's claims of election fraud, accusing him of fuelling the unrest on Wednesday that had fatal consequences at the heart of American democracy.

Humphreys said he publicly opposed Trump in October 2016 because "you have to look in the mirror and recognize that you cannot possibly justify support for Trump to your children."

He went on: "I need to say the same about Missouri's U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who has shown his true colors as an anti-democracy populist by supporting Trump's false claim of a 'stolen election.' Hawley's irresponsible, inflammatory and dangerous tactics have incited violence and further discord.

"Hawley should be censured by his Senate colleagues for his actions which have undermined a peaceful transition of power and for provoking yesterday's riots in our nation's capital.

Many are lining up to criticize Hawley—a chorus of condemnation that could hurt his presidential chances in a 2024 race in which he was positioning himself to inherit the mantle and support base of Trump.

His mentor, former Sen. Jack Danforth, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that supporting Hawley and trying to get him elected "was the worst mistake I ever made in my life."