A day before the riot at the Capitol, people received a call from a group of Republican attorneys general urging them to 'march:' report

ydzhanova@businessinsider.com (Yelena Dzhanova) 

© Michael Nigro/Pacific Press:LightRocket/Getty Riots at the US Capitol Building. Michael Nigro/Pacific Press:LightRocket/Getty

• The fundraising arm of a national Republican attorney general group sent out robocalls the day before the deadly riot at the Capitol urging people to "march," according to NBC News. 
• "At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal," a voice on the call said. 
• Pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday after the president encouraged them to protest the results of the election. 
• Five people, including a police officer, died. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The day before pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol building, people received an encouraging phone call from a group of Republican attorneys general telling them to "march," NBC News reported. 

The group - the Republican Attorney General Association - is made up of some of the nation's highest-ranking law enforcement and legal officers. 

Its fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, disseminated robocalls to people urging them to head to the Capitol on January 6, according to NBC News. 

Read more: Secret Service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump might be hauled out of the White House if he won't budge on Inauguration Day

"At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal," a voice on the call said, NBC reported.  

There was no direction in the call to storm the Capitol building, according to NBC News. Violence was also not advocated.

The Rule of Law Defense Fund is closely tied to the Republican Attorney General Association, NBC News reported. The two share offices and funding. Staff members collaborate and work on the same projects. 

Steve Marshall, the Alabama attorney general who is in charge of the arm, said he was unaware these calls went out. 

"I was unaware of unauthorized decisions made by RLDF staff with regard to this week's rally," Marshall said in a statement to NBC News. "Despite currently transitioning into my role as the newly elected chairman of RLDF, it is unacceptable that I was neither consulted about nor informed of those decisions. I have directed an internal review of this matter."

When reached for comment by Business Insider, RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper expanded on Marshall's statement. 

"The Republican Attorneys General Association and Rule of Law Defense Fund had no involvement in the planning, sponsoring, or the organization of Wednesday's event," Piper said. "No Republican AG authorized the staff's decision to amplify a colleague speaking at the event. Organizationally and individually, we strongly condemn and disavow the events which occurred. Wednesday was a dark day in American history and those involved in the violence and destruction of property must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and held accountable."

The riot, which began after President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to protest the results of the election, has been characterized as an attempted coup. Rioters stormed the Capitol building as lawmakers were meeting inside to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Five people, including one police officer, died. Members of the Proud Boys, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, were reportedly present at the Washington, DC, riot. 

Many lawmakers began to shelter in place upon notice that the riot broke out. Many evacuated the Capitol building. A quick-thinking Senate aide secured the boxes containing the electoral votes, rescuing them from possible damage. 

The vote to certify President-elect Joe Biden went on as planned hours after the riot ended. 

A day after the riot, Trump said there would be "an orderly transition" on January 20, Inauguration Day.

The riot spurred calls to once again impeach Trump, this time on a charge for "incitement of an insurrection." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell circulated a memo to Republicans saying Trump cannot logistically be removed from office before Inauguration Day.

RAGA also released multiple statements from its attorneys general and leaders, saying the organization condemns the "violence and lawlessness" at the Capitol.

Their condemnation was not enough for the Democratic Attorneys General Association, according to a statement from organization chairs and attorneys general Maura Healey and Aaron Ford.

"It is not enough for Republican Attorneys General to denounce the violence at the Capitol; they must publicly distance themselves from the Republican Attorneys General Association and its leadership," the statement reads. "And we encourage any individual and entities financially-backing the committee to abstain from further supporting an organization that makes such a mockery of the rule of law and our beloved democracy."

Read the full report from NBC News here.

Expanded Coverage Module: capitol-siege-module

Read the original article on Business Insider

 

Scenario: Trump resigns after extorting pardons – deluded he’ll fend off recrimination and penalties

Many voices must apply maximum pressure, but it’s no slam dunk that anything overcomes Trump’s impenetrable defenses.

By

 Robert S. Becker

 -

January 8, 2021

SOURCENationofChange

The wheels are coming off what was already skidding off the icy bridge onto the guardrails. Who knows the odds for or against Trump finishing his term, so here’s one scenario that follows the logic of the current dynamics.

If there’s one Trump nightmare more terrifying than losing, even humiliation, it’s being held responsible – and, horror or horrors, personally punished for criminal misconduct. This is a creep who wants everyone else to pick up every breakfast, lunch, and dinner tab. Any successful malignant narcissist must have perfected his manipulative style, erecting thick walls to keep him (or her) from ever having to pay a price for untreated psychopathology. Now in free fall, Trump the righteous warrior has to feel besieged, in fortress mode, confused that his machinations no longer work.

Paranoia feeds on itself when enemies, hiding under every rock, rush out in force to persecute the innocent, “stable genius.” Having gotten away with so much, Trumped cannot abandon the fiction he can get away with anything, even inciting a riot against Congress debating his own delusional election challenges. That’s why Trump spent hours on Tuesday, per current reports, pressing Pence to bring off a coup – or else there would be hell to pay for all perceived foes. Delusion, thy name is Trump.

If an intervention had stopped earlier derangement, this psychopath might have been shocked into awareness of sickness, with heavy demands to get therapy. But Republicans were too cowardly and too blinded by ambition to understand the bomb in their midst ready to go off. Indeed, his party shared many of the same delusions, that it, too, could ruthlessly get away with anything. That’s exactly what its pulled off with the unconscionable manipulation of two Supreme Court nominations. That makes it far more than poetic justice to see Merrick Garland nominated for Attorney General – and with Democratic senate control a sure thing.

The Farce of Self-pardoning

That Trump is again ready to pardon himself, per utterly unsurprising reports on Thursday, is exactly how power-hungry madmen perpetually try to escape harm’s way. Forget the blatant contradictions (and likely impossibility) of self-pardoning, turning the law on its head by making the unrepentant criminal his own corrupt judge. High-flying narcissists would be paralyzed if they believed for moment they were truly and permanently trapped.

Thus ends one of Trump’s most corrosive, norm-busting lies. Never could Trump have shot someone on Fifth Ave and walked away scot-free. That was just an unfunny, dark fantasy to obscure his over-weening confidence that someone so entitled was an untouchable superman. That jest wasn’t true four years ago, and it’s not true today. Of course, indicted narcissists are the last ones to know the walls are closing in and the doors are all locked – and there is no way out.

Trump’s own major appointments are finally, tellingly too late, rushing for the exits. High time. If Speaker Pelosi says the House is ready to impeach if the 25th Amendment isn’t invoked, then we will have another impeachment. The 25th Amendment is too cumbersome to work, with too many built in delays; plus, it’s designed not to remove the criminally deranged but the unconscious, physically defective, incapable to performing basic duties. That is, alas, not Trump unless he has a stroke – and what, in the next two weeks? This is no quicky impeachment alternative. And if invoked, there will be more outraged Trumper mayhem and more bloody streets.

The Walls are Closing in

Trump, like Nixon, should be given no choice except to resign. Trump will insist that resignation comes only with a full Pence pardon for past, present and future sins (and maybe some bonus cash on the side, if Trump’s predictable blackmail works). Pressure from cabinet members talking up the 25th amendment would help corner the criminal president. So would Moscow Mitch declaring that a majority of senators are ready, if not eager to convict, to save their asses and careers.

In short, many voices must apply maximum pressure, but it’s no slam dunk that anything overcomes Trump’s impenetrable defenses. That’s what crazy is all about. How do you make clear to a psychopath that he’s run out of options? If Trump remains in fortress mode, more vindictive and paranoid than ever, he won’t hear any more reality about personal threats than he ever did about the legitimacy of the election that fired him.

And what if we haven’t seen the worst? What if this enraged commander-in-chief attempts to call for martial law or orders the military to do his bidding? Until he is defanged, and not even then, any president has immense powers. As a positive, this finale will force some of the 74 million voters to regret thinking Trump worthy of re-election. Many are as crazy as he.  But some Trump voters will come to understand they voted for madness over a sane centrist who makes genuine contact with other earthlings and accepts unpleasant realities beyond his control.

Trump proves what a desperate malignant narcissist will do – scheming up a coup is par for the course. His is no mildly neurotic condition, capable of normal restraints: losing delusional control over his world represents a mortal threat. His fabricated, protective walls are his persona and without them he is unacceptably vulnerable. That surpasses all other fears, that he will make history by being doubly impeached, or threatened with the 25th Amendment, or eventually the first U.S. jailbird president.

For the greediest of status-conscious billionaires, whose self-esteem equals his bank balance, jail is only slightly worse than losing all his money. Without an inheritance to wave about, whither his slavish family? To avoid harsh penalty, children might even start telling the truth – and won’t that be a juicy tale for the ages? Truthtelling would be infinitely more enlightening than hearing one more nutcase rightwinger blame anti-Trump haters for causing the Capitol riots. So we’re not done yet, but we are making progress through pain, tears and bloodshed.

The Mob Is Gone, but the Crisis of the Republican Party Has Only Begun

By Amy Davidson Sorkin  January 7, 2021

Even after the storming of the Capitol, a group of senators,

 including Josh Hawley, of Missouri, still voted to disenfranchise 

millions of their fellow-Americans.

Photograph by Win McNamee / Getty

Just after 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, Representative Conor Lamb, Democrat of western Pennsylvania, rose on the floor of the House to defend the franchise of the people in his state. Even at that late hour, and even after a Trumpist mob urged on by the President had attacked the Capitol, a group of Republican House members, joined by Senator Josh Hawley, of Missouri, was trying to get the state’s electoral votes thrown out. Their objections, Lamb said, “don’t deserve an ounce of respect—not an ounce.” His colleagues, he said, had to be clear about what had happened that day: “Invaders came in for the first time since the war of 1812. They desecrated these halls.” And, he added, “for the most part, they walked in here free. A lot of them walked out free. And there wasn’t a person watching at home who didn’t know why that was: because of the way that they look.”

Lamb was referring to the apparent leniency that the mostly white mob had been afforded by law-enforcement officers in the course of an attempt to violently undo the election. Many of the Trumpists had displayed, for the cameras, a thuggish air of territorialism, as if it hadn’t occurred to them that battering through the windows of the Capitol; assaulting police officers; trying to hunt down the Vice-President, Mike Pence; physically threatening legislators; or vandalizing the Speaker’s office might carry with it legal liability. It’s not known how many may have had guns or other weapons. There had been no effective effort to repel them and, in the immediate wake, few arrests. (A woman died after being shot by the Capitol police; three people died of what authorities described as medical emergencies.) Those circumstances will require an urgent and profound inquiry in the days to come—how much is attributable to a security failure, to the mis-deployment of law-enforcement, to a sense of impunity encouraged by Donald Trump, to a strain of violence in our political culture, or to, as Lamb suggested, racism? (Some of the rioters carried Confederate and white-supremacist symbols, as well as “TRUMP” flags.) But the immediate reaction to Lamb’s words was a low rumble of voices from the Republican side of the aisle.

Lamb, who had earlier debunked the conspiracy theories that Trump has pushed about the Pennsylvania vote, continued, “We know that that attack today, it didn’t materialize out of nowhere. It was inspired by lies, the same lies that you’re hearing in this room tonight. And the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves; their constituents should be ashamed of them.” As he continued speaking, the Republican hubbub grew. “Point of order,” Representative Morgan Griffith, of Virginia, said, after Lamb got a few more sentences out. “The gentleman said that there were lies, on this floor, here today, looking over in this direction. I ask that those words be taken down!”


Members of Congress are not supposed to insult one another directly, but the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who was presiding, said that the complaint had come too late. (She added that she had been called the same thing on the floor.) Griffith and his cohort continued to try to shout down Lamb; as so often with Trump’s allies, they appeared to imagine that they were the real victims. In an instant, members on both sides were leaving their seats in what became a near skirmish, before Pelosi restored order. Perhaps the events of the day had left some Republicans chastened—but not all of them. “The truth hurts,” Lamb said. “But the fact is this: we want this government to work more than they want it to fail.”

All the elements that Lamb cited—the lies, the shame, the failure, and the determination to make our democracy work—had been on display in the preceding hours. It was a remarkable relief that, after such a tumultuous, bitter, dangerous day (chronicled by my colleagues John Cassidy, Evan Osnos, Susan Glasser, Masha Gessen, and Vinson Cunningham), both houses of Congress had reassembled in the same chambers to get the job of counting the electors done. If those halls had been desecrated, they were also, in part, reconsecrated. A little after 3:30 a.m., the electors for Wyoming, the final state alphabetically, were added to the tally, and, with that, the last box was checked in certifying Joe Biden’s victory. Pence and the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, had broken with Trump on the question of whether he could stage a coup, if on nothing else. But there was no instant great awakening on the part of the Republican caucus. In the late-night session, the Party’s pathologies and Trumpist distortions were still present.

Before the storming of the Capitol, thirteen Republican senators had said that they planned to object to the electors of various states, as did some hundred and forty representatives. Senator James Lankford, of Oklahoma, was in the middle of a speech urging the disenfranchisement of Arizona’s voters, when the senators were told that the rioters were in the building. By the time that he and his colleagues returned, he had decided to withdraw his objection. But six senators—Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Cindy Hyde-Smith, John Kennedy, Roger Marshall, and Tommy Tuberville—still voted to reject Arizona’s electors and thus disenfranchise the state’s voters. (Before the assault on the Capitol began, Hawley had greeted the gathering mob with a fist-in-the-air salute.) So did a hundred and twenty-one representatives—a majority of the Republican caucus in the House—including the Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, of California.

VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER“That’s Not Who We Are” Is the Wrong Reaction to the Attack on the Capitol


The debate on Arizona, when it resumed, became a venue for senators to also address the violence. Michael Bennet, of Colorado, invoked the fall of the Roman Republic, with “armed gangs” who “ran through the streets,” and asked that the election results be received with “the biggest bipartisan vote we can.” He added, “Every single member of this Senate knows this election wasn’t stolen.” Dick Durbin, of Illinois, remembered Abraham Lincoln’s struggles, and his victories. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, noted that both during the War of 1812 and this week, the forces attacking the capital were “waving flags to a sole sovereign”—one a British King and the other an American President who has forgotten what the limits on that office are, and has built a cult of personality.



Ron Wyden, of Oregon, called the mob “domestic terrorists” and noted that “Donald Trump can do enormous damage to our country in the next two weeks”—as, indeed, he can. Wyden said that the use of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to remove a President who has become incapable of doing his job was being discussed, in some circles, in earnest. (There are reports that those talks are taking place within the Administration; some mid-level officials have already resigned. On Thursday morning, Trump said in a statement that there would be an “orderly transition” but continued to claim fraud.) Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois, a combat veteran, described her shock at witnessing a domestic coup attempt. She said that she wasn’t asking her Republican colleagues for any “grand gesture”—she was just asking them not to sacrifice American democracy to protect Trump’s “porcelain ego.”


Those were the Democrats. On the Republican side, the responses to the attack ranged widely. Senator Mitt Romney said that he had been “shaken to the core” by what he called an “insurrection.” He bluntly told his fellow-Republicans that if they objected to the electors they would be complicit, and that “the best way we can show respect for the voters who were upset is by telling them the truth; the truth is that President-elect Biden won the election; President Trump lost.” Mike Lee said that he had struggled with the decision, but wouldn’t object. Marco Rubio thought that politics had made “everybody” crazy—an abdication of both personal and partisan responsibility. Pat Toomey defended the election’s integrity, while assuring those listening to his speech that he had voted for Trump and had hoped that he’d win. Senator Lindsey Graham embarked on a freewheeling ship-jumping riff: “All I can say is count me out”—out of the coup attempt, presumably—“enough is enough, I’ve tried to be helpful.” He has indeed tried—to be helpful to Trump, including by stoking his efforts to undermine confidence in the election result and even donating money for the President’s legal challenges.

It is, obviously, a good thing that Graham has had enough, that Pence did not try to rip up the electoral certifications, and that McConnell worked with Democratic leaders to quickly reconvene Congress and condemned what he called “this failed insurrection.” But they all supported Trump for far too long; their subservience has been pathetic, and they cannot be surprised by where Trump has taken them and the country. He has been openly calling for the sort of attempted putsch that we witnessed on Wednesday. He reportedly had to be pushed to tell the rioters to leave, and only did so in ambiguous statements that mixed incitement with an expression of love for them. What has changed is that Trump is now clearly on the losing side, and McConnell and Graham know it.

Other Republicans still haven’t given up. Over in the House, Matt Gaetz, of Florida, babbled about how “some pretty compelling evidence from a facial-recognition company” showed that people in the mob weren’t Trump supporters at all but “members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.” There had been some hope that the congressional Trumpists would not press on with objections about other states. (An objection requires the signature of at least one representative and one senator, and triggers two hours of debate.) Senator Kelly Loeffler, of Georgia, who lost her reëlection bid on Tuesday, announced that she would withdraw her objection to her state’s tally. And, when the conspiracy-minded Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, also of Georgia, lodged her objection to Michigan’s electors, she got no senatorial takers. But, after midnight, Hawley signed on for Pennsylvania. That meant another two-hour debate for his colleagues, many of whom had earlier been forced to barricade themselves in safe rooms or behind furniture. (Grace Meng, of New York, told CNN that she texted her family goodbye, thinking that she might not survive; other legislators had similar stories.)





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When the debate on the Pennsylvania electors began, Representative Scott Perry, of that state, who had co-signed the objection with Hawley, had the temerity to wave a copy of the Constitution and inform his colleagues that it was “just a piece of paper; it cannot defend itself.” That was too much for Representative Joe Neguse, Democrat of Colorado. “I carry the same Constitution that you do,” he said, holding up his copy. “And the Constitution, sir, does not allow you, me, or any member of this body to substitute our judgment for that of the American people. It does not allow us to disregard the will of the American people.”

The truth of what Neguse said seems self-evident. Still, seven Republican senators—Cruz, Hawley, Hyde-Smith, Cynthia Lummis, Marshall, Rick Scott, and Tuberville—voted to reject Pennsylvania’s electors. So did a hundred and thirty-eight Republican representatives. In a statement on Wednesday, General James Mattis, the former Secretary of Defense, said that Trump “will deservedly be left a man without a country.” But he is not yet a man without a party, or a faction. This is a precipitous moment, but whatever struggle lies between now and January 20th—and it may be a profound one—Trump’s poisonous Presidency will soon end. The crisis of the Republican Party has barely begun

.
Read More About the Attack on the Capitol
Donald Trump, the Inciter-in-Chief.
He must be held accountable.
An Air Force combat veteran was part of the mob in the Senate.
The invaders enjoyed the privilege of not being taken seriously.
The crisis of the Republican Party has only begun.

A Pelosi staffer recounts the breach.

Amy Davidson Sorkin has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2014. She has been at the magazine since 1995, and, as a senior editor for many years, focussed on national security, international reporting, and features.

View all stories

Election 2020 Trump’s Reckoning—and America’s
Only after a riot and an attempted coup has Congress finally ended the 2020 Presidential election.
By Susan B. Glasser


Dispatch Mob Rule in the Capitol
Five years after the Trump era began, a physical assault on America’s basic symbols of democracy feels both shocking and inevitable.
By Evan Osnos


VideoI n a Taped Call, Trump Pressures a Georgia Official to Overturn the State’s Election Results
In a phone call on January 2, 2021, President Trump falsely insisted he won the state and threatened Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State, with vague legal consequences.

The Political Scene

The Republican Identity Crisis After Trump
The Trump Presidency poses stark questions for Republicans and Democrats about their ideological futures.
By Nicholas Lema

.

The short, scary MAGA cosplay ‘revolution’

Without consequences for those who encouraged what happened on Wednesday, up to and including the outgoing president, such lawlessness could become a normal feature of American political life.

By Derek Royden-January 8, 2021 SOURCE NationofChange

On Wednesday morning it appeared that the Democratic Party was ascendant in American federal politics for the first time since 2010, with the party on the cusp of forming a super majority in the country’s government. Not only was the Congress going to enact what has in the past been a mainly ceremonial process of certifying the president elect’s victory later in the day, but runoff Senate races the day before in Georgia had been won by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

The wins meant that, barring intransigence from the center right of the Democratic party itself, for at least the next two years, Vice President Harris will cast the deciding vote in the case of a tie in the now evenly split Senate. Thus, a path had been cleared for the incoming president to pass legislation to help working Americans struggling through the health and economic crises created by a pandemic and exacerbated by the Whiner in Chief and his rightwing allies in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

Further, with numbers similar to or surpassing the margins achieved by President-elect Biden in the state in the November election, the Senate wins seemed to fully repudiate the outgoing president’s claim that massive voter fraud had occurred there, causing him to lose the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes. Nonetheless, President Trump continued to lie to his supporters in a speech he gave that very day, telling them that 66,000 people under the age of 18 had voted for Biden in Georgia, swinging the election there in former vice-president’s favor.

Rather than finally accepting the results, Trump allies in the media and in the country’s Congress spent two months helping him whip up his supporters with this kind of conspiracy theorizing, including the absurd claim that Canadian voting machines in some states (but apparently not in others) were controlled by the government of Venezuela.

There were signs of what was coming the night before on the streets of Washington, DC. Already on Tuesday night, a number of videos began to circulate of Proud Boys and other far right agitators confronting police as they were preparing themselves, likely through the consumption of alcohol, for their promised ‘Stop the Steal’ protest against the electoral college vote that would end the delusion that their hero had been the true winner of the November election.

Authorities were also well aware of the stabbings and other violence that took place in the capital in mid-December at the last big MAGA rally.

The Proud Boys and other MAGA supporters who joined them on Tuesday night seemed to have no understanding of police tactics like kettling and reacted to them with rage, railing against the very authorities they’d spent the whole summer praising as many in law enforcement attacked mainly peaceful Black Live Matter protesters in cities throughout the country.

Even as they were admonished and threatened by men who claimed to be ‘small business owners’ and ‘veterans’, DC police didn’t react with anything near the level of violence we saw in Kenosha, Wisconsin and other cities throughout the summer. No Proud Boys or Oath Keepers were bundled into unmarked cars for questioning as BLM supporters were in Portland, Oregon.

The outgoing president, who for all intents and purposes incited an attack on the country’s Congress while the certification of Biden was taking place, was reportedly hiding in his motorcade after promising to lead his supporters to the capitol building, telling them in a speech before they stormed it, “After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down anyone you want, but I think right here. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

They showed the strength their leader had called for by setting up a noose and a makeshift gallows outside of the building and seemed to easily push past police who lacked the kind of body armor we have grown used to seeing at protests in the country, storming the capital and forcing those inside to hide.

Photos and video from the scene showed the insurrectionists sitting in the Senate chamber and in Nancy Pelosi’s office. Some reportedly stole items from that and other Congressional offices.

Rather than seeming prepared, Capitol Police came across as even more feckless than they had in videos from the previous night. In fairness, unless they were monitoring TheDonald.win and social media sites like Parler (as they should have been) they couldn’t know what these MAGA supporters were planning.

Considering what we’ve learned about far right infiltration of law enforcement and the military in the United States in recent years, perhaps some of them did know and even supported the actions of the insurrectionists, as video quickly surfaced of police taking selfies with some of those who just stormed the building. There is also footage of police opening a fence to let a horde of MAGA supporters in.

Compared to what we saw when police brutally cleared Lafayette Square on June 1st of last year to provide the outgoing president with his now infamous Bible toting photo opp, for whatever reason, law enforcement in the capital of the most powerful country in the world seemed overwhelmed by these self-proclaimed ‘patriots’.

There were also images of the so-called protesters using what appears to be a police riot shield to break windows on the side of the building, allowing them to enter and begin opening doors to let others in without any visible police presence to deter them.

Having said all this, some police did seem to try to do their jobs under what must have been extremely difficult circumstances in which they were vastly outnumbered.

The rioter’s actions led to the shooting death of a woman, Ashli Babbitt, who I watched bleed out in real time in a horrifying live stream. While progressives never celebrate police violence and she will likely become a rallying cry for future MAGA dead enders, it’s hard to argue that storming the Capitol was anything but stupid and those involved are lucky that more of them didn’t die as a result their own clearly illegal actions.

As soon as it was established that there would be no revolution and that their behavior had caused the world to view them with revulsion, some on the MAGA right began to look for others to blame. It was inevitable that they would land on ‘antifa’, who have been branded ‘terrorists’ within their echo chamber.

Besides the promise by Proud Boys that they would dress all in black in imitation of ‘antifa’ on Wednesday, the internet was soon full of images of well known Trump supporters both at the gates of and storming the capitol building.

In what might be the most disgusting example, White supremacist streamer Baked Alaska (Tim Gionet), who usually spends his time harassing low wage essential workers for enforcing mask mandates and publicly insulting people of color, complained that a SWAT member pushed him as he was being ejected from the building.

Gionet is reportedly Covid 19 positive and was not wearing a mask. He has not to my knowledge been arrested.

For more conventional voices on the right, there are already some taking a ‘both sides’ approach to what happened, with Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who was one of those contesting the presidential election result, telling reporters, “What do you think was taking place in this country? There’s been a lot of people during the last four years that have just been getting more and more incensed over what is going on around the country, on both sides. It’s just too bad. This is not how we handle things in America.”

One thing that we learned on Wednesday was that you can’t defeat what looks more and more like actual fascism rather than creeping authoritarianism by ignoring it and hoping it will go away. I fear that judging by what he’s said since, President-elect Biden still doesn’t understand this.

Incoming Missouri Congressperson Cori Bush better articulated how to stand up to these reactionary forces, explaining her plans for Trump’s enablers on Twitter, “My first resolution in Congress will be to call for the expulsion of the Republican members of Congress who incited this domestic terror attack on the Capitol.”

Without consequences for those who encouraged what happened on Wednesday, up to and including the outgoing president, such lawlessness could become a normal feature of American political life.

Just as Democrats Claim Senate Majority, Manchin Condemned for vowing to 'Absolutely Not' Support $2,000 Checks

"When millions of people are starving in tent cities, they will be called 'Manchinvilles.'"

SCUM SUCKING BOTTOM FEEDER

by

Julia Conley, staff writer

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) said Friday he would vote against coronavirus 

relief legislation that includes $2,000 relief checks.

 (Photo: Third Way Think Tank/Flickr/cc)

Days after the crucial victories of new Democratic Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock were credited in large part to clear messaging about the need for a Democrat-controlled Senate in order to send $2,000 checks to American households, Sen. Joe Manchin on Friday provoked scorn Friday by saying he would "absolutely not" support providing such relief.

Manchin told the Washington Post he believes vaccine distribution should be "job number one" for Democrats, despite the fact that additional funding for coronavirus vaccines is expected to be included in the package the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden is developing. 

"Joe Manchin is worth an estimated $7 million. At least 70% of West Virginia households would qualify for $2,000 checks."
—Andrew Perez, Daily Poster

The conservative West Virginia Democrat expressed concern that people who have not lost income at this point as a result of the pandemic would potentially receive $2,000 checks, in addition to those who currently are in dire need of relief. 

"How is the money that we invest now going to help us best to get jobs back and get people employed? And I can't tell you that sending another check out is gonna do that to a person that's already got a check," Manchin told the Post. 

As more than 125 economists from institutions including Harvard, Princeton, and Berkeley told lawmakers in November, direct payments to a wide swath of American households "are one of the quickest, most equitable, and most effective ways to get families and the economy back on track" amid 6.7% unemployment and an economic crisis which has caused more than half of American adults to lose income, left nearly 26 million people unable to afford basic essentials like groceries, and caused an estimated 12 million renters to fall thousands of dollars behind in their rent payments. 

The legislation Biden's team is currently working on would include extended unemployment benefits as well as direct payments and funding for state and local governments. Under the control of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who opposes $2,000 payments and funding for states and cities, the Senate has failed to pass legislation including more than $600 payments since last March, when the CARES Act was passed. 

Gaining a Democratic majority in the upper chamber has been thought to be the key to ensuring people across the country receive meaningful aid after nearly 10 months of receiving no direct payments, and nearly half a year without the enhanced unemployment benefits included in the CARES Act, which were credited with reducing poverty but were allowed to lapse by the Republican Party last summer.

Ossoff and Warnock's victories in Georgia, following two months of tireless get-out-the-vote efforts by organizers with groups including Mijente and the New Georgia Project, give Democrats control of the senate, with a 50-50 split and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris acting as tiebreaker if the Democrats use Senate rules allowing them to pass the coronavirus relief package with a simple majority.

With the close margin, the loss of Manchin's vote could force Biden to drastically change his proposal, the Post reported—just after he called on Georgia voters to support Ossoff and Warnock to make sure "those $2,000 checks will go out the door, restoring hope and decency and honor for so many people who are struggling right now."

Saikat Chakrabarti, co-founder of Justice Democrats, denounced Manchin for coming out against the $2,000 payments—saying the senator's comment "already hurts the Democrats," even before the actual vote takes place.

"We won Georgia because we promised $2,000 checks," Chakrabarti tweeted. "Joe Manchin is threatening the Democratic majority in the Senate if he goes against it, and for no reason."

We won Georgia because we promised $2000 checks. Joe Manchin is threatening the Democratic majority in the Senate if he goes against it, and for no reason. He will face no political backlash in West Virginia for supporting it, but Ossoff and Warnock will if Dems don't back it.

— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) January 8, 2021

Daily Poster editor Andrew Perez noted that by threatening the party's ability to ensure Americans receive relief checks, Manchin will do measurable harm to his own constituents, 40% of whom are facing food insecurity.

Joe Manchin is worth an estimated $7 million. At least 70% of WV households would qualify for $2,000 checks. 40% of West Virginians are dealing with food insecurity. The number of people in WV who say they often don't have food to eat has increased 70% during the pandemic https://t.co/jqucznp4sY

— Andrew Perez (@andrewperezdc) January 8, 2021

Joe Manchin (D-WV) is against $2000 stimulus checks.

West Virginia is ranked 50th in income. 50th of 50.

— JRehling (@JRehling) January 8, 2021

When millions of people are starving in tent cities, they will be called "Manchinvilles." https://t.co/jxGSm05Mtq

— Gravel Institute (@GravelInstitute) January 8, 2021

"Joe Manchin should talk to the working class West Virginians he's supposed to represent and see what they think about him saying 'absolutely not' to the $2,000 relief checks that 80% of Americans support in the middle of the worst economic pain since the Great Depression," added Democracy Spring founder Kai Newkirk.

People for Bernie suggested that with 78% of Democratic voters, 60% of independents, and 54% percent of Republicans supporting $2,000 checks, according to Data for Progress, Manchin will ultimately harm his own political career should he vote against the legislation.

There's bi-partisan support for $2000 checks.

If Joe Manchin wants to vote against COVID survival relief, no one will forget.https://t.co/KtgQsBhGNT

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 8, 2021

"No one will forget," the group tweeted.

'Cannot Afford to Wait': Tlaib Leads Letter Demanding Congress Immediately Reconvene to Impeach and Remove Trump

"The rule of law is dead if a sitting president can incite an insurrectionist mob to overturn democracy and then pardon everyone involved, including himself."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

A banner towed by a plane calls for the impeachment of President Donald Trump

 on January 7, 2021. (Photo: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan is leading a group of House Democrats in demanding that congressional leaders immediately reconvene both chambers to begin the process of impeaching and removing President Donald Trump, arguing that the nation cannot afford to "risk his unhinged behavior any longer."

"The attack on our nation's Capitol yesterday was a result of his incitement, and we cannot go home while he remains in the highest office in our land, threatening our elected officials, our nation's Capitol, and our very democracy," reads the Thursday letter (pdf), which is addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

"We will set a dangerous precedent if there are no consequences for a sitting U.S. president inciting violence as a last-ditch effort to remain in power against the will of the American people who voted him out of office."
—Letter from House Democrats

The call by Tlaib and other House progressives came shortly before Trump released a brief video address late Thursday acknowledging that there will be a new administration on January 20 and pledging to submit to an "orderly transition," remarks that came just two days after a violent right-wing mob encouraged by the president invaded and ravaged the U.S. Capitol Building.

Tlaib and her Democratic colleagues warned that while Trump's official departure is less than two weeks away, that short period "may prove to be detrimental to our nation—every day that he remains in office is a serious threat to our democracy and our national security."

"We will set a dangerous precedent if there are no consequences for a sitting U.S. president inciting violence as a last-ditch effort to remain in power against the will of the American people who voted him out of office," the lawmakers wrote. "Congress must reconvene immediately in order to begin proceedings to remove Donald J. Trump from office."

We must #ImpeachTrumpNow & remove him. I’ve sent a letter, with @JamaalBowmanNY, @CoriBush, @AOC, @IlhanMN, & @AyannaPressley, to Congressional leadership calling on them to reconvene & take immediate action to get Trump out of the White House. We cannot afford to wait.

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) January 7, 2021

Despite urgent pressure on the House hold the president to account for inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Democratic leaders adjourned the chamber Thursday morning after Congress certified President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

During a press conference Thursday afternoon, Pelosi called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and said the House "may be prepared to move forward with impeachment" if he refuses to act, remarks that did not reflect the sense of urgency expressed by many members of her caucus.

"Please call the House to order and let's get it done. Today. Right now," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has unveiled articles of impeachment against the president charging that he violated his oath and abused his power by attempting to overturn the November election and inciting violence in an "attempted coup against our country."

Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement late Thursday that they "have not yet heard back from the vice president" but hope to receive a response "as soon as possible." The statement does not mention impeachment.

Earlier Thursday, Schumer told reporters that when he and Pelosi attempted to get Pence on the phone hours after the assault on the Capitol, White House staff "kept us on hold for 25 minutes, and then said the vice president wouldn't come on the phone."

With Pence predictably refusing to act and as members of the Cabinet—most recently Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—avoid the 25th Amendment push by jumping ship, The American Prospect's David Dayen argued Thursday that "the only remedy that can actually do the job here is impeachment and removal."

"The need to remove, needless to say, is urgent," Dayen wrote. "Every crime perpetrated in Washington yesterday is a federal crime. Many U.S. attorneys, all appointed by Trump, are lining up to say they will prosecute seditionists, but Trump can end that immediately through the pardon power. Everyone in the Capitol yesterday can be absolved, if they were ever at risk at all."

"Moreover," Dayen continued, "each day of the final 13 that Trump remains in power gives him the ability to run this cycle again, or worse. And impeachment would bar him from any federal office in the future, which is an appropriate outcome for someone explicitly vowing to overthrow the government."

The New York Times reported Thursday that, in addition to granting clemency to a number of other officials, Trump "has suggested to aides he wants to pardon himself in the final days of his presidency," an idea the president raised prior to his incitement of the right-wing mob. It is not clear whether Trump has suggested a self-pardon in the wake of the Capitol attack, according to the Times.

Observers were quick to note that either the successful invocation of the 25th Amendment or impeachment and removal by Congress would strip Trump of his pardon power, which he has thus far wielded to the benefit of his political allies and convicted war criminals. The Constitution makes clear that presidents "cannot pardon offenses for which they are impeached," as one expert recently pointed out.

Barring Trump from pardoning himself is reason alone "to remove Trump from office immediately, whether it be via the 25th Amendment or impeachment," argued Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos Elections.

"The rule of law is dead if a sitting president can incite an insurrectionist mob to overturn democracy and then pardon everyone involved, including himself," Wolf added.

Will Stancil, a research fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School's Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, tweeted late Thursday that "impeachment can't be 'early next week,'" a response to one Democratic lawmaker who suggested such a timeline.

"There are reports that Trump is gearing up for mass preemptive pardons," Stancil wrote. "There are reports he's trying to start a war. He's certainly willing to foment unrest. And surely we all realize, by now, that he means it. Impeach him tomorrow."

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