Short version, yes.
Pretty amazingly bad day for our republic. Shocking without being surprising.
I did not get a lot of work done today.
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Disappointed, not surprised, disapproving.
Enough pictures of all of them that finding and charging them should be straightforward.
Also, wow. This isnāt the first time and far from the most violent time.
I keep forgetting how violent the Puerto Rican separatist movement was.
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The day before the election, Johtoguy asked the following:
Legitimate question, no judgement. IF you are a trump supporter still can you please explain to me your logic/reasoning?
If I remember right, no one answered that question. I may have been the closest to being able to, but the question no longer applied to me. I took time to not only think about when I stopped supporting him, but how much I had done so before.
I think it may have been mostly just nominal support rather than anything strong or dedicated. I voted for him in 2016 and Iād post messages saying, āHereās something that happened, hereās what I think and hereās an idea to consider.ā Thatās the extent of it.
One of those ideas I proposed came up about three times, based on what Scott Adams has said: The election might come down āYou may not like him, but is he getting the job done?ā In July last year, I updated it to add his behavior could outweigh the idea of setting aside personal dislike of him in favor of having him continue to get the job done.
When Johtoguy asked his question, I had already cast my ballot and it wasnāt for Trump. Thatās when I realized I had already answered my own proposal a long time ago but I didnāt know I had. It wasnāt for how he was dealing with the pandemic. It wasnāt for him being a loud mouth and a braggart. It was because I couldnāt in good conscience vote for him. I couldnāt support someone who treats others the way he does.
If we look at his time as President, the most important job he's had has been dealing with the pandemic. He dealt with it haphazardly and half-heartedly but did get things going so vaccines would be developed and tested faster. Then he stopped dealing with it to focus on the election. Then he became obsessed with the election. Then the preemptive claims of voter fraud became claims the election was stolen from him. He filed law suit after law suit to try to change it so he'd be the winner. Anything happening with the pandemic was secondary at best.
I think today showed why his focus shifted. In his mind, his only job is to keep his job, but not to actually do his job.
He urged his supporters to fight the vote and they took him literally. A woman died because of it. And when he was given the opportunity to demonstrate integrity, ethics, compassion and the kind of strength of character that a U.S. President should be known for, he instead chose to continue to play the victim and to give his approval to what happened.
"I know your pain. I know youāre hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order and we have to respect our great people in law and order. We donāt want anybody hurt. Itās a very tough period of time. Thereās never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country.
āThis was a fraudulent election. But we canāt play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. Youāre very special. Youāve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace.ā
No condemnation of what happened. No calls that this damage to federal property be treated the same as when he denounced other damage previously. No sympathy for anyone that was hurt or killed. Just go home, no harm, no foul. The Donald loves you and youāre special.
Three weeks ago, I said, "I'm really beginning to wonder if Donald Trump isn't headed for a rapid and sudden downfall that means we wonāt have to worry about him mucking up the 2024 race."
If everybody remembers what happened with Harvey Weinstein, there were 106 women that filed accusations against him, but it took one woman to start the process that led to his downfall. When the audio recording was leaked this past weekend of Trump trying to get the Georgia election official to ārecalculateā and find him votes so that he would win by exactly one vote, I wondered again if that wouldnāt lead to Trumpās downfall.
Now we add today.
Every person in the House and Senate that was going to object to the counting of the votes now has to weigh whether being loyal to Donald Trump is worth the life of the woman that was killed in the riot. Some have decided itās not and will vote to certify the results instead of objecting to them.
Mike Pence is not giving in to what Trump wants and it was Pence, not Trump, who got the decision made to get the National Guard deployed.
Officials in the White House are resigning or considering resigning because of the riot.
Trumpās video I quoted above has been removed from Facebook and both his Facebook and Twitter accounts are currently suspended. Further infractions will result in the accounts being shut down.
There are calls that Pence should remove Trump from office by invoking Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Business leaders are also calling for it. Leaders of other countries are condemning what happened and what Trump said about it. Section 4 is kind of like how a doctor can relieve a soldier from command under certain conditions.
If Trump were to run in 2024, heād be 77 or 78, depending on when he started campaigning. Itās a bit old to do that, but we have this past year as a playbook of how he would behave. If he were elected, we know he will behave this same way in 2028 (at age 82) to fight to stay in power again.
In between now and then, he has a lot of law suits heāll be facing that he canāt use the office of President any longer to protect himself from them. Any pardons he might be trying to arrange for himself and his family only apply to federal offenses and not to state or local offenses.
By law, he cannot stay at Mar-a-lago for more than seven consecutive days and no more than a total of 21 days in any year because he got the property changed from a private residence to a private club in the 1990s and the city government and his neighbors are going to hold him to it.
I really think that Donald Trump is about to reap what heās been sowing all these years and itās not going to end well for him.
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Iām keeping this short(er) and in summary format. Cue the collective sigh of relief.
- In the riot, laptops and documents were stolen and House Speaker Nancy Pelosiās computer was accessed. With the fuss made about that one laptop last year, this should be an even bigger security problem.
- The death toll of the riot is now five: a police officer that died on Thursday from the injuries he received in the riot, a woman who was shot as she was attempting to get into an office, a woman who was trampled, a man who had a heart attack, and another person with a non-specified medical emergency. Donāt forget about Bussa Krishna who worshiped Trump as a god and died in October after going on a fast in support of him.
- During the riot, Trump tried to call a newly-elected Senator to get him to overturn the results because Mike Pence would not. He was given the wrong number and the Senator who answered the phone handed it to the other person. At 7 p.m., Rudy Giuliani calls the same wrong number in an another attempt to get the election results overturned. It goes into voice mail. The recording has been released.
- People who participated in the riot are being arrested or are being fired from their jobs.
- A second impeachment will be filed Monday and is being kept limited in focus so it can proceed quickly. This would mean that Trump would be prevented from holding any more federal jobs.
- Trumpās Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitch accounts were frozen on Wednesday. After a couple of attempts by him to keep going and get around being banned via using the POTUS account, Twitter permanently suspended Trumpās personal account. Others might now also be permanent suspensions (need to verify this). Shopify has closed all stores run by his organization and his campaign. Reddit shut down a forum and Discord banned a server about him. The Parler app has been removed from the Google Play Store and Apple is about to do the same, with both specifying Parler must moderate its contents in order to be restored.
- Dominion Voting Systems is suing Sidney Powell, Trumpās lawyer, for $1.3 billion for defamation.
- Many resignations in various areas, including someone who worked for Melania Trump.
- Itās going to get worse as we approach January 20th. Hate speech, statements of violence, etc., are increasing.
Two personal observations:
- Since there was talk about imposing martial law and reports are coming out that Donald Trump resisted sending the National Guard and seemed to be enjoying the violence, is it possible he continued to pump up crowds during rallies beforehand with the intent of creating a situation where he would have reason to declare martial law?
- Trump has $421 million in loans heās personally guaranteed that are coming due within the next four years. Could the banks look at what happened and decide to call for those loans to be repaid early because of concerns he might not be able to pay them back? If one did, others might, too, creating a spiral that forces him into bankruptcy.
This isnāt technically automatic, it requires a separate (simple majority) vote from the Senate to apply this as a punishment.
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I thought this was a very good speech.
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Both the Capitol Police and the Mayor of DC were offered Federal assistance before and during the event. They refused.
The woman who was shot had an armed policeman (AR and helmet) standing like ten feet behind her. In the video the capitol officer who shot her was plainly not in any danger and had several officers around him who did not shoot. It looks like he panicked and fired without authorization.
Its almost like two different groups entered the Capitol. One was like the womenās march that got in. The officers opened doors and it was very orderly including people staying inside the velvet ropes. Another is people smashing windows to get in and fighting their way through officers.
From his history Trump appears to enjoy bankruptcy.
I think its also very interesting that even the heart attack during the protest is laid at Trumps feet while anyone injured or killed during the protests this summer were just unavoidable accidents or had no relation.
I hope these people all go to trial because the discovery phase ought to be interesting. Why kid gloves in one place and not others. Was it the difference in the protesters/rioters or in the reaction?
I saw some video before but havenāt bothered to look again. From reports I read, she was pushing her way past a chokepoint and not responsive to orders to get back. Itās easy to second guess and Iām sure there will be an investigation, but the reasonable person standard may look a little different when youāre facing a mob chanting āstop the stealā and (earlier) ākill Mike Pence.ā
I donāt think anyone reasonable is claiming that violence from last summerās protests were unavoidable accidents or unrelated, though Iām sure you can find some wingnut in a YouTube comment. I donāt think youāre making a good faith argument here. Iād attribute the majority of last summerās injuries to police escalation and brutality, but thatās me and reasonable people may differ.
I also think a fair case can be made that the president tried to incite a riot and intentionally refrained from tamping it down once started until pressured by his staff and advisors. If you incite a riot, you do have some moral culpability for what results.
I suspect the ākid glovesā approach may be largely attributed to a) how many off-duty LEOs were part of the mob and b) how many on-duty LEOs sympathized with their cause, at least up until the point where they start beating cops to death.
Given the presence of things such as the gallows, explosive devices, firearms caches, and zip-tie cuffs, I think things could very easily have been much, much worse if the mob had actually found the people they were seeking.
Iām very disappointed by the virtually nonexistent response from DoD to these events. Thereās no both-sidesing here or reasonable room for discussion of grievances.
āIf itās successfulā was implied in āso it can proceed quicklyā.
Of course. When itās other peopleās money, itās not an issue with him. And previously, he had lots of time to work on being a winner again. Now, itās his money because he personally guaranteed the loans. At age 74, how much time does he have now to do the same thing, especially when heās got a steeper hill to climb now?
Sig covered that pretty good and Iām sure itās a double standard, but can the heart attack and the other deaths be laid at Trumpās feet? Letās look at each one.
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The man who had the heart attack. Not in good health. Other activities that would cause him stress or exertion like running, playing basketball or having sex could have triggered it, too. Likelihood that it would have happened sometime this year: probable.
Likelihood that he would have a heart attack on that date at that location if not for Donald Trumpās words and the words of those who support him creating a high stress situation: zero or near-zero.
Likelihood of the heart attack occurring if Donald Trump and others had used different words, such as āShow up but donāt do anything. Keep it peaceful, have a sit-in. Just let everyone see you there.ā: much lower if not also zero. -
The woman killed when she was trampled. Would she have been killed by being trampled if not for Donald Trumpās words and the words of those who support him encouraging her to go there and creating a highly charged and emotional situation?
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The woman killed when the firearm went off. Anyone got any statistics of that happening on any given day to any given person? What would be the odds of it happening to her on that date at that location if not for the words of Donald Trump and those that support him encouraging her to go there then and creating a highly charged and emotional situation that could lead to a weapon being fired deliberately or accidentally?
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The officer who died from from the injuries. He would have been there anyway as security for the event, but would he have sustained those injuries if not for the words of Donald Trump and those that support him?
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Another officer had his head crushed in a door and will now be off work due to those injuries. Same question as above.
If Donald Trump had said nothing about the election being rigged or stolen, had not filed the law suits, not done any of what he did, how many people would have taken it upon themselves to go to the Capitol to show support for him with no other prompting? Would they have said, āI think the election was stolen from him so Iām going to do something about itā?
A few. Any fanatical moment will always have a small group that takes it farther than they should. But some fanatical movements also have the leadership encouraging it.
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No, the police in riot gear came up the stairs after she was shot.
Thatās different to the video I saw. The one I saw showed her climbing through a window in a barricaded door, with a mob behind her. She was certainly not a āpeaceful protestorā as some right wing nut job news outlets would have you believe. Peaceful protestors donāt climb through barricaded doors.
Hereās a different perspective.
What would you do if you were one of the police in this picture and someone started coming through the window?
Would you wait for āauthorisationā? Or would you just shoot? Thatās basically the situation the police were in when the woman started climbing through the window. There may well be more facts that come out in subsequent days, but at the moment Iāve got no quibbles with the decision to fire.
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Thatās not the room.Or the officer who shot her. Dude with a nightstick and pistol in his hand isnāt shooting anyone any time soon. Especially since heās also on the phone.
The video clip I saw shows security guard types blocking the door to a hallway. With multiple armed police on the other side of it. Just behind a crowd of about 20 or so are more police more heavily armed. The security guards get out of the way and a couple dudes start breaking the window. Once they break it enough they back off and this woman starts to climb through and gets shot. once she is shot the riot police take the couple steps up to get to the landing at he is peering through the window to try to make eye contact or something, then he gives a thumbs up, I am assuming to say he has control.
There are almost as many uniforms on or near that landing as there are rioters.
Iām not saying it was an unjustified shooting, not my job to say, but it is odd that they were talking to police on one side of the door and shot by police on the other side of the door, at the very least the shooter needs to be retrained on the 4 gun rules. Usually when protesters go to the Capitol they are either let in or totally denied, this was some half assed in between shit.
Also, Iād rather the Capitol be attacked than a Wendys or a car dealer when people riot.
I didnāt mean to imply that photo was the same room or the same officer, what I was trying to do was give a different perspective. The videos I have seen have all been from the other side of the door, where a mob broke a window and started climbing through.
This photo shows more what it would be like on the other side of the door. The police (who, I believe, were Penceās personal security detail) wouldnāt have seen exactly what was going on on the other side, they would have just seen the mob, broken window, someone climbing through. Their job is to protect Pence and they did just that.
This is quite the lede.
Audrey Ann Southard spent years helping kids find their creative voices and strengthening her own.
The Spring Hill vocal coach and piano teacher sang like an angel when she posted videos of herself crooning Norah Jonesā Donāt Know Why or belting out Memory from Cats, and when she went to Sicily in 2012 for an international music competition, she won.
That led to a showcase on a stage inside New Yorkās Carnegie Hall.
More recently, Southard used her powerful soprano to scream at police officers that they should ātell fāking Pelosi weāre coming for her! Fāking traitorous cāts, weāre coming! Weāre coming for all of you!ā She was part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
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A few years ago, Donald Trump said at a rally that the polls say he has the most loyal people āwhere I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnāt lose any voters.ā The crowd laughed at how funny it was. When you look at the video such as this one from ABC News, heās doing another āthey sayā where heās using a vague āsomebody saidā reference to discredit or downplay what heās done. Later on in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, he said he was joking. āOf course I was joking.ā
Itās such a rambling message where he starts and stops what heās saying in order to say something else that you almost have to diagram it on paper to figure out what heās actually talking about. In one part, heās praising how loyal people are to him. In the middle of it, heās trying to make a joke that exaggerates the loyalty to the point of absurdity that he could get away scot-free with blatantly killing someone right in public. And thatās in the middle of his own exaggerations about his popularity and poll ratings.
Historians are putting the pieces together of all the times Trump did something that was dismissed in the past as being āfake newsā, āalternative factsā and other things, but what they really were was Trump testing to see what he could get away with. When youāve lived your life being able to get away with things without facing the consequences, you keep doing it. You begin to believe you will always get away with it because so far, you have. You keep going and you keep getting away with it until one day, you donāt. Thatās usually the day when it becomes clear youāre not going to get away with it ever again and it all comes crashing down.
Hereās Mike Thompsonsās political cartoon from January 13th in USA Today:
āYour conduct has grown unpredictable and even erratic ā including rambling and self-indulgent public performances that have baffled experts, citizens and law enforcement professionals alike ā making it impossible for you to effectively lead this agency.ā
You have been spending ātoo much time cultivating a public image, and not enough time getting your own house in order."
Your conduct was āanother media circus full of unprofessional conjecture, bizarre legal theories, and irresponsible speculationā containing āstrange legal decisions and contradictory public statementsā.
āYouāve shown a total inability to control leaks, both within and outside the agency. As a result, intelligence ā real and fake ā has been weaponized into an instrument of partisan warfare.ā
Your actions and decisions reflect āa total lack of judgment and have left our country deeply divided and rightfully angry.ā
āAmerica needs an FBI director who inspires confidence across all layers of government, and who the public believes to be fair, impartial and beyond reproach. You have lost the confidence of the skilled professionals in your command, the congressional lawmakers with whom you work, and the general public whom you serve.ā
Portions of the letter Donald Trump drafted prior to firing James Coney on May 9, 2017 before it was scrapped by White House lawyers, as reported today by ABC News.
Welp. That was a hell of a thing.
He was really terrible.
I wasnāt sure whether to post this here or under my Photoshop threadā¦ admins, please move if you think it should go thereā¦
So, I decided to get in on the whole āBernie memesā thing. The Friends one is more pixilated than I would have liked (I took it from a gif) but the MIB one turned out well, I think. I may have had a bit too much fun with that one. On the plus side, this is the first Photoshop manip Iāve done without a tutorial, so obviously somethingās sinking in!
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The MiB one is quite good and Iām downloading that one. 
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