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Showing posts with label Juan Cole on Accelerationists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Cole on Accelerationists. Show all posts

Monday, January 11, 2021

Dire FBI Bulletin Warns Of Upcoming Violence - Read the New Article Of Impeachment - Links To Don Winslow's Video - Update 01/12: Juan Cole On Accelerationists Must Read

Still cannot come up with CNN's Special Report from yesterday, "The Trump Insurrection" but I'm working on it. Meanwhile, reading tweets, found out about Don Winslow's new video, and just so happens, Juan Cole has graciously showcased it for y'all to watch. You may be interested in reading the new (resolution) Article of Impeachment - however, what's up with Mike Pence, why doesn't he invoke the 25th Amendment ?

 Possibly he will not invoke the 25th Amendment due to threats...???

 ~ From CNN:

FBI Warns 'Armed Protests' Being Planned at All 50 state Capitols And In Washington D.C.

 

Updated 4:51 PM ET, Mon January 11, 2021

 

"The FBI has received information indicating "armed protests" are being planned at all 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20, according to an internal bulletin obtained by CNN.

"Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the US Capitol from 17 January through 20 January," it says.
 
The bulletin, which was circulated after rioters stormed the US Capitol last week, also suggests there are threats of an "uprising" if President Donald Trump is removed via the 25th Amendment before inauguration day.
 
"On 8 January, the FBI received information on an identified group calling for others to join them in 'storming' state, local and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event POTUS is removed as President prior to Inauguration Day. This identified group is also planning to 'storm' government offices including in the District of Columbia and in every state, regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump, on 20 January," the bulletin adds.
 
Additionally, the FBI is tracking reports of "various threats to harm President-Elect Biden ahead of the presidential inauguration," the bulletin states.
"Additional reports indicate threats against VP-Elect Harris and Speaker Pelosi," it adds.
ABC News was first to report the FBI bulletin.
 
Calls for new protests in Washington and states across the country have law enforcement bracing for more possible violence in the coming days after rioters stormed the US Capitol last week leaving five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.
 
Authorities are preparing for additional personnel to help secure the nation's capital in the coming days. A Department of Homeland Security official told CNN that the breach of the Capitol will sharpen the response and planning for inauguration.
 
"Now that it happened people will take it much more seriously," the official said, referring to last week's violence. "Now, the planners, they are all going to take it much more seriously."
 
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on Monday urged Americans to avoid the city during Biden's inauguration next week and to participate virtually following last week's deadly domestic terror attack on the US Capitol.
 
Meanwhile, the National Guard has plans to have up to 15,000 National Guard troops to meet current and future requests for the inauguration, Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said Monday. The dramatic increase in troops comes as law enforcement in the nation's capital and around the country brace for further extremist violence amid the transition of power.
 
Speaking at a news conference Monday, Bowser, a Democrat, stressed that she was concerned about more violent actors potentially coming to the city in the run-up to the inauguration, saying, "If I'm scared of anything, it's for our democracy, because we have very extreme factions in our country that are armed and dangerous."
 
"Trumpism won't die on January 20," said Bowser, who has asked Trump and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to declare a pre-disaster declaration for DC."
 
This story is breaking and will be updated.

"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The far right militias, some of whom invaded the Capitol on 1/6, are now planning armed invasions of all 50 state capitols in advance of Jan. 20, according to the FBI, and are coming back for a second try at taking over the national Capitol. One reason Twitter kicked Trump, QAnon, and other undesirables off its platform was that they saw organizing for a Jan. 17 uprising.

These groups are what social scientists call “accelerationists.” They believe that through direct action and spectacles of violence they can increase the speed of polarization in society, fomenting a race war or at least a war between those who firmly support the cause of the white race and those who wish to diminish its prerogatives (as they see them). Some of them infiltrated last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, engaging in violence and destruction as a false flag, hoping it would be blamed on African-Americans and that whites would then become alarmed and join them.

These elements on last Wednesday were trying to find and kill or kidnap Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, and perhaps other legislators, in hopes of igniting nationwide violence that would benefit them.

It can be a frighteningly effective tactic. Accelerationism, what I call “sharpening the contradictions,” was the tool that al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and then ISIL used to take over 40 percent of Iraq. They have also had some success in pushing France to the far right and in damaging French traditions of civil liberties and tolerance.

The Southern Poverty Law Center analysis notes that adulation of Trump has given many of these disparate groups a common loyalty and orientation. In essence, they have become Trump’s private militia, like Mussolini’s black shirts. It is this loyalty to him, which he has cultivated (he called them “very special” on 1/6), that has endangered the Republic, since they are now determined to stop the inauguration of Joe Biden.

So who are these groups and what do they want?

There are about 940 distinct hate groups in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

With the efforts of the odious Trump and his white supremacist cronies, members of these groups have infiltrated the US government.

SPLC writes,

    “The Trump administration has installed members of hate groups into government—particularly those with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim or anti-LGBTQ animus—and put in place highly punitive policies that seemed unthinkable just a few short years ago. These political moves will far outlast this administration, as Trump and his allies in the U.S. Senate have pushed through hundreds of new federal judges, many of whom are hostile to civil rights concerns and will serve for decades.”

About a dozen Capitol police are being investigated on charges of having collaborated with the insurrectionists.

Not all hate groups are categorized as “anti-government.” In 2018, SPLC identified 576 extreme anti-government organizations.

Not all anti-government groups are organized on a paramilitary basis. They estimated that there are 181 militias. It was members of the militias who were dressed in military garb as they invaded the Capitol, and who appear to have contemplated violence against our elected representatives.

The SPLC has gathered information on 25,000 militiamen.

The capabilities of the militiamen have been vastly enhanced by the veterans of Bush’s Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, who have joined them in significant numbers and have brought with them tactical and firearms and explosives expertise.

Among the major militias are the Proud Boys: The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project or ACLED writes,

    “The Proud Boys are a fascist youth movement oriented towards street-fighting. Their ideology is to ‘defend western chauvinism.’ The group is right-wing and anti-left in nature and has had several members convicted for violence. They were created by VICE News founder Gavin McInnes who has since backed away from the group (The Guardian, 22 November 2018). The Proud Boys rely heavily on jokes and silliness to downplay the group’s proclivity for violence, both threatened and real. The current de facto leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is also the Florida director of ‘Latinos for Trump’ (CNN, 1 October 2020). The Proud Boys are evolving into a more militant organization. Groups of young men increasingly show up to Proud Boys events with rifles and plate carriers.”

SPLC describes two others:

    “Three Percenterism is one of three core components within the antigovernment militia movement, along with the Oath Keepers and traditional militia groups. The reference to 3 percent stems from the dubious historical claim that only 3 percent of American colonists fought against the British during the War of Independence.”

and

    “The Oath Keepers, another core component of the militia movement, was founded in 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a veteran army paratrooper, Yale Law School graduate and former Ron Paul congressional staffer. It primarily recruits current and former law enforcement, military and first-responder personnel, though it also accepts civilians. Unlike Three Percenterism, Oath Keepers was conceived as an organization with hierarchical leadership at national, state and local levels, one committed to establishing a network of activists it hopes will lay the groundwork for the creation of state militias.”

Then you have the Boogaloo Bois, who are not so much an organization as a set of shared beliefs expressed online, and who have ruined Hawaiian shirts for me. They believe in an imminent race war, the Boogaloo, and are extremely violent. They use “big luau” for Boogaloo online to avoid NSA detection, and engage in other word play.

Benjamin Goggin and Rachel E. Greenspan write at The Insider:

    “The loosely organized group of predominantly white men call themselves the Boogaloo Bois, a name that comes from the cult 1984 film “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” but morphed in online message boards and groups to reference a theoretical second US civil war and uprising against the federal government. Online, where almost all of their organization occurs, members have created numerous groups and pages under the names “big igloo” and “big luau” in an attempt to avoid censorship from tech platforms. The far-right group, born from 4chan’s /k/ board, which is dedicated to gun worship, has no firm central organization, and only has a loose collection of shared values.”

Law enforcement underestimated these groups on 1/6. They must not do that again, not on 1/17 or on 1/20. Trump has whipped them up with his endless lies about the election being stolen from him, and clearly he has put Joe Biden’s life in danger."

—-

Bonus Video:

NBC News: “FBI Memo Warns Of Possible Armed Protests At All 50 State Capitols | NBC News NOW” 

 

~~~ 


end edit.

 

~~~~~


 Here we go:

 

 -   From Informed Comment :

BTW, don't miss all of their reports, and if you just click the links below, you don't have to sign in to You tube to watch the video:

 

I Submit This Video As Evidence In The Impeachment of Donald Trump: Don Winslow 

 

"Don Winslow Films | Don Winslow | –

Also on YouTube."

 

~~~~~ 


 ~ From CNN: (click CNN link for all the latest reports one right after the other)

 

  READ: House Article of Impeachment Against Donald Trump

 

Updated 11:02 AM ET, Mon January 11, 2021

 

~~~~~

 

 ~  From CNN:

 

 House Democrats Plan To Vote Wednesday To Impeach Trump


(CNN)House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Democrats on a caucus call Monday, setting up an impeachment vote one week after rioters incited by Trump overran Capitol police and breached some of the most secure areas of the US Capitol.

The House will vote Tuesday evening on a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, and then plan to vote Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET on the impeachment resolution, Hoyer said.
 
Democrats formally introduced their impeachment resolution Monday, charging Trump with "incitement of insurrection" as they race toward making him the first president in history to be impeached twice. Wednesday's vote underscores Democrats' fury toward Trump and his supporters after months of false rhetoric about the election being stolen whipped the President's most ardent followers into a deadly mob Wednesday that ransacked the Capitol, forced lawmakers to evacuate both the House and Senate -- and could have been worse.
 
The single impeachment article, which was introduced when the House gaveled into a brief pro-forma session Monday, points to Trump's repeated false claims that he won the election and his speech to the crowd on January 6 before the rioters breached the Capitol. It also cited Trump's call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where the President urged him to "find" enough votes for Trump to win the state.
 
"In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government," the resolution says. "He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States."
The resolution, which was introduced by Democrats David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California, also cited the Constitution's 14th Amendment, noting that it "prohibits any person who has 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion against' the United States" from holding office.
 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told House Democrats on Sunday evening that the House would vote on impeachment this week unless Pence moves to invoke the 25th Amendment with a majority of the Cabinet to remove Trump from power.
 
The level of unity in the Democratic caucus is being driven by the visceral reaction to what happened on January 6, when lawmakers had to be evacuated from the House and Senate chambers with rioters banging on the chambers' doors as the insurrectionists tried to stop the counting of votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden would become president on January 20. Five people were killed, including a US Capitol Police officer.
 
Still, House Democrats' race toward impeachment poses complications for the incoming Biden administration, as a Senate trial threatens to hamper the opening days of Biden's presidency. While some Democrats had suggested waiting to send the impeachment resolution to the Senate until after Biden's first 100 days in office, Hoyer and other top Democrats said Monday they wanted to do so immediately.
 
Because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he won't bring back the Senate from recess before January 19, that would push the trial into the beginning of the Biden administration.
 
At a press conference Monday, Biden acknowledged that impeachment could make it more difficult for him to get his Cabinet confirmed or pass another stimulus bill. He said he was hopeful that the Senate could spend half the day on nominations and legislations and the other half on the trial, and he was waiting to hear back from the Senate parliamentarian.
 
Regardless of the answer, it's clear Democrats are pushing forward with an impeachment vote. Cicilline said Monday "we have the numbers" already to impeach Trump, and he predicted some Republicans would vote for it too, unlike the House's December 2019 votes to impeach Trump.
 
"I expect that we'll have Republican support," Cicilline said. "I think it's urgent that the President be removed immediately."
 
Democrats on Monday sought to take up a resolution from Raskin urging Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. Hoyer asked for unanimous consent to bring up the resolution, but West Virginia GOP Rep. Alex Mooney objected to the request. Pelosi has said the Democrats will move to bring the resolution for a floor vote on Tuesday.
 
Pelosi said in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" that she liked the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment "because it gets rid of him," but explained, "one of the motivations people have for advocating for impeachment" is to prevent Trump from holding office again.
"There's strong support in the Congress for impeaching the President a second time," she said.
 
House Republicans have urged Democrats not to move forward with impeachment, arguing that such a move would be divisive in the face of Biden's calls for unity. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is also holding a conference call with the GOP conference Monday, according to a source familiar.
Some House Republicans are privately discussing whether to censure Trump as a way to express their disapproval about the President's actions without going along with the Democratic effort to impeach him, according to several GOP sources. It's unclear, though, whether they will ever get a chance to vote on such a plan. Democratic leaders have shown no willingness so far to schedule a vote on anything short of impeachment.
 
"I suggested this would have bipartisan support and makes more sense since the inauguration is a week away," Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said in a statement. "But the Democrats I've talked to were not very receptive."
 
It's unclear whether Republicans would vote for impeachment, though several are considering it. Several Republicans in districts Biden won say they would oppose it, including Bacon, who said last week that it "only exacerbates our divide and throws gas on the fire."
 
A spokesman for Iowa GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said she "believes that impeaching the President with only a few days left in his term would only further divide the American people and make it harder for President-Elect Joe Biden to unite the country."
 
Still, there's been little to slow momentum toward impeachment since Wednesday. Two Senate Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have called on Trump to resign in the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol. 
 
In another sign that little short of Trump's resignation will stop impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Buffalo News Monday he won't let a Senate trial stall Biden's agenda, even if it would make it more difficult.
 
"We're going to have to do several things at once, but we got to move the agenda as well," Schumer said. "Yes, we've got to do both."
 
This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.
 
 

Dire FBI Bulletin Warns Of Upcoming Violence - Read the New Article Of Impeachment - Links To Don Winslow's Video - Update 01/12: Juan Cole On Accelerationists Must Read

Still cannot come up with CNN's Special Report from yesterday, "The Trump Insurrection" but I'm working on it. Meanwhile, reading tweets, found out about Don Winslow's new video, and just so happens, Juan Cole has graciously showcased it for y'all to watch. You may be interested in reading the new (resolution) Article of Impeachment - however, what's up with Mike Pence, why doesn't he invoke the 25th Amendment ?

 Possibly he will not invoke the 25th Amendment due to threats...???

 ~ From CNN:

FBI Warns 'Armed Protests' Being Planned at All 50 state Capitols And In Washington D.C.

 

Updated 4:51 PM ET, Mon January 11, 2021

 

"The FBI has received information indicating "armed protests" are being planned at all 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20, according to an internal bulletin obtained by CNN.

"Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the US Capitol from 17 January through 20 January," it says.
 
The bulletin, which was circulated after rioters stormed the US Capitol last week, also suggests there are threats of an "uprising" if President Donald Trump is removed via the 25th Amendment before inauguration day.
 
"On 8 January, the FBI received information on an identified group calling for others to join them in 'storming' state, local and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event POTUS is removed as President prior to Inauguration Day. This identified group is also planning to 'storm' government offices including in the District of Columbia and in every state, regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump, on 20 January," the bulletin adds.
 
Additionally, the FBI is tracking reports of "various threats to harm President-Elect Biden ahead of the presidential inauguration," the bulletin states.
"Additional reports indicate threats against VP-Elect Harris and Speaker Pelosi," it adds.
ABC News was first to report the FBI bulletin.
 
Calls for new protests in Washington and states across the country have law enforcement bracing for more possible violence in the coming days after rioters stormed the US Capitol last week leaving five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.
 
Authorities are preparing for additional personnel to help secure the nation's capital in the coming days. A Department of Homeland Security official told CNN that the breach of the Capitol will sharpen the response and planning for inauguration.
 
"Now that it happened people will take it much more seriously," the official said, referring to last week's violence. "Now, the planners, they are all going to take it much more seriously."
 
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on Monday urged Americans to avoid the city during Biden's inauguration next week and to participate virtually following last week's deadly domestic terror attack on the US Capitol.
 
Meanwhile, the National Guard has plans to have up to 15,000 National Guard troops to meet current and future requests for the inauguration, Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said Monday. The dramatic increase in troops comes as law enforcement in the nation's capital and around the country brace for further extremist violence amid the transition of power.
 
Speaking at a news conference Monday, Bowser, a Democrat, stressed that she was concerned about more violent actors potentially coming to the city in the run-up to the inauguration, saying, "If I'm scared of anything, it's for our democracy, because we have very extreme factions in our country that are armed and dangerous."
 
"Trumpism won't die on January 20," said Bowser, who has asked Trump and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to declare a pre-disaster declaration for DC."
 
This story is breaking and will be updated.

"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The far right militias, some of whom invaded the Capitol on 1/6, are now planning armed invasions of all 50 state capitols in advance of Jan. 20, according to the FBI, and are coming back for a second try at taking over the national Capitol. One reason Twitter kicked Trump, QAnon, and other undesirables off its platform was that they saw organizing for a Jan. 17 uprising.

These groups are what social scientists call “accelerationists.” They believe that through direct action and spectacles of violence they can increase the speed of polarization in society, fomenting a race war or at least a war between those who firmly support the cause of the white race and those who wish to diminish its prerogatives (as they see them). Some of them infiltrated last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, engaging in violence and destruction as a false flag, hoping it would be blamed on African-Americans and that whites would then become alarmed and join them.

These elements on last Wednesday were trying to find and kill or kidnap Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, and perhaps other legislators, in hopes of igniting nationwide violence that would benefit them.

It can be a frighteningly effective tactic. Accelerationism, what I call “sharpening the contradictions,” was the tool that al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and then ISIL used to take over 40 percent of Iraq. They have also had some success in pushing France to the far right and in damaging French traditions of civil liberties and tolerance.

The Southern Poverty Law Center analysis notes that adulation of Trump has given many of these disparate groups a common loyalty and orientation. In essence, they have become Trump’s private militia, like Mussolini’s black shirts. It is this loyalty to him, which he has cultivated (he called them “very special” on 1/6), that has endangered the Republic, since they are now determined to stop the inauguration of Joe Biden.

So who are these groups and what do they want?

There are about 940 distinct hate groups in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

With the efforts of the odious Trump and his white supremacist cronies, members of these groups have infiltrated the US government.

SPLC writes,

    “The Trump administration has installed members of hate groups into government—particularly those with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim or anti-LGBTQ animus—and put in place highly punitive policies that seemed unthinkable just a few short years ago. These political moves will far outlast this administration, as Trump and his allies in the U.S. Senate have pushed through hundreds of new federal judges, many of whom are hostile to civil rights concerns and will serve for decades.”

About a dozen Capitol police are being investigated on charges of having collaborated with the insurrectionists.

Not all hate groups are categorized as “anti-government.” In 2018, SPLC identified 576 extreme anti-government organizations.

Not all anti-government groups are organized on a paramilitary basis. They estimated that there are 181 militias. It was members of the militias who were dressed in military garb as they invaded the Capitol, and who appear to have contemplated violence against our elected representatives.

The SPLC has gathered information on 25,000 militiamen.

The capabilities of the militiamen have been vastly enhanced by the veterans of Bush’s Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, who have joined them in significant numbers and have brought with them tactical and firearms and explosives expertise.

Among the major militias are the Proud Boys: The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project or ACLED writes,

    “The Proud Boys are a fascist youth movement oriented towards street-fighting. Their ideology is to ‘defend western chauvinism.’ The group is right-wing and anti-left in nature and has had several members convicted for violence. They were created by VICE News founder Gavin McInnes who has since backed away from the group (The Guardian, 22 November 2018). The Proud Boys rely heavily on jokes and silliness to downplay the group’s proclivity for violence, both threatened and real. The current de facto leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is also the Florida director of ‘Latinos for Trump’ (CNN, 1 October 2020). The Proud Boys are evolving into a more militant organization. Groups of young men increasingly show up to Proud Boys events with rifles and plate carriers.”

SPLC describes two others:

    “Three Percenterism is one of three core components within the antigovernment militia movement, along with the Oath Keepers and traditional militia groups. The reference to 3 percent stems from the dubious historical claim that only 3 percent of American colonists fought against the British during the War of Independence.”

and

    “The Oath Keepers, another core component of the militia movement, was founded in 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a veteran army paratrooper, Yale Law School graduate and former Ron Paul congressional staffer. It primarily recruits current and former law enforcement, military and first-responder personnel, though it also accepts civilians. Unlike Three Percenterism, Oath Keepers was conceived as an organization with hierarchical leadership at national, state and local levels, one committed to establishing a network of activists it hopes will lay the groundwork for the creation of state militias.”

Then you have the Boogaloo Bois, who are not so much an organization as a set of shared beliefs expressed online, and who have ruined Hawaiian shirts for me. They believe in an imminent race war, the Boogaloo, and are extremely violent. They use “big luau” for Boogaloo online to avoid NSA detection, and engage in other word play.

Benjamin Goggin and Rachel E. Greenspan write at The Insider:

    “The loosely organized group of predominantly white men call themselves the Boogaloo Bois, a name that comes from the cult 1984 film “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” but morphed in online message boards and groups to reference a theoretical second US civil war and uprising against the federal government. Online, where almost all of their organization occurs, members have created numerous groups and pages under the names “big igloo” and “big luau” in an attempt to avoid censorship from tech platforms. The far-right group, born from 4chan’s /k/ board, which is dedicated to gun worship, has no firm central organization, and only has a loose collection of shared values.”

Law enforcement underestimated these groups on 1/6. They must not do that again, not on 1/17 or on 1/20. Trump has whipped them up with his endless lies about the election being stolen from him, and clearly he has put Joe Biden’s life in danger."

—-

Bonus Video:

NBC News: “FBI Memo Warns Of Possible Armed Protests At All 50 State Capitols | NBC News NOW” 

 

~~~ 


end edit.

 

~~~~~


 Here we go:

 

 -   From Informed Comment :

BTW, don't miss all of their reports, and if you just click the links below, you don't have to sign in to You tube to watch the video:

 

I Submit This Video As Evidence In The Impeachment of Donald Trump: Don Winslow 

 

"Don Winslow Films | Don Winslow | –

Also on YouTube."

 

~~~~~ 


 ~ From CNN: (click CNN link for all the latest reports one right after the other)

 

  READ: House Article of Impeachment Against Donald Trump

 

Updated 11:02 AM ET, Mon January 11, 2021

 

~~~~~

 

 ~  From CNN:

 

 House Democrats Plan To Vote Wednesday To Impeach Trump


(CNN)House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Democrats on a caucus call Monday, setting up an impeachment vote one week after rioters incited by Trump overran Capitol police and breached some of the most secure areas of the US Capitol.

The House will vote Tuesday evening on a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, and then plan to vote Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET on the impeachment resolution, Hoyer said.
 
Democrats formally introduced their impeachment resolution Monday, charging Trump with "incitement of insurrection" as they race toward making him the first president in history to be impeached twice. Wednesday's vote underscores Democrats' fury toward Trump and his supporters after months of false rhetoric about the election being stolen whipped the President's most ardent followers into a deadly mob Wednesday that ransacked the Capitol, forced lawmakers to evacuate both the House and Senate -- and could have been worse.
 
The single impeachment article, which was introduced when the House gaveled into a brief pro-forma session Monday, points to Trump's repeated false claims that he won the election and his speech to the crowd on January 6 before the rioters breached the Capitol. It also cited Trump's call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where the President urged him to "find" enough votes for Trump to win the state.
 
"In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government," the resolution says. "He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States."
The resolution, which was introduced by Democrats David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California, also cited the Constitution's 14th Amendment, noting that it "prohibits any person who has 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion against' the United States" from holding office.
 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told House Democrats on Sunday evening that the House would vote on impeachment this week unless Pence moves to invoke the 25th Amendment with a majority of the Cabinet to remove Trump from power.
 
The level of unity in the Democratic caucus is being driven by the visceral reaction to what happened on January 6, when lawmakers had to be evacuated from the House and Senate chambers with rioters banging on the chambers' doors as the insurrectionists tried to stop the counting of votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden would become president on January 20. Five people were killed, including a US Capitol Police officer.
 
Still, House Democrats' race toward impeachment poses complications for the incoming Biden administration, as a Senate trial threatens to hamper the opening days of Biden's presidency. While some Democrats had suggested waiting to send the impeachment resolution to the Senate until after Biden's first 100 days in office, Hoyer and other top Democrats said Monday they wanted to do so immediately.
 
Because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he won't bring back the Senate from recess before January 19, that would push the trial into the beginning of the Biden administration.
 
At a press conference Monday, Biden acknowledged that impeachment could make it more difficult for him to get his Cabinet confirmed or pass another stimulus bill. He said he was hopeful that the Senate could spend half the day on nominations and legislations and the other half on the trial, and he was waiting to hear back from the Senate parliamentarian.
 
Regardless of the answer, it's clear Democrats are pushing forward with an impeachment vote. Cicilline said Monday "we have the numbers" already to impeach Trump, and he predicted some Republicans would vote for it too, unlike the House's December 2019 votes to impeach Trump.
 
"I expect that we'll have Republican support," Cicilline said. "I think it's urgent that the President be removed immediately."
 
Democrats on Monday sought to take up a resolution from Raskin urging Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. Hoyer asked for unanimous consent to bring up the resolution, but West Virginia GOP Rep. Alex Mooney objected to the request. Pelosi has said the Democrats will move to bring the resolution for a floor vote on Tuesday.
 
Pelosi said in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" that she liked the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment "because it gets rid of him," but explained, "one of the motivations people have for advocating for impeachment" is to prevent Trump from holding office again.
"There's strong support in the Congress for impeaching the President a second time," she said.
 
House Republicans have urged Democrats not to move forward with impeachment, arguing that such a move would be divisive in the face of Biden's calls for unity. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is also holding a conference call with the GOP conference Monday, according to a source familiar.
Some House Republicans are privately discussing whether to censure Trump as a way to express their disapproval about the President's actions without going along with the Democratic effort to impeach him, according to several GOP sources. It's unclear, though, whether they will ever get a chance to vote on such a plan. Democratic leaders have shown no willingness so far to schedule a vote on anything short of impeachment.
 
"I suggested this would have bipartisan support and makes more sense since the inauguration is a week away," Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said in a statement. "But the Democrats I've talked to were not very receptive."
 
It's unclear whether Republicans would vote for impeachment, though several are considering it. Several Republicans in districts Biden won say they would oppose it, including Bacon, who said last week that it "only exacerbates our divide and throws gas on the fire."
 
A spokesman for Iowa GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said she "believes that impeaching the President with only a few days left in his term would only further divide the American people and make it harder for President-Elect Joe Biden to unite the country."
 
Still, there's been little to slow momentum toward impeachment since Wednesday. Two Senate Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have called on Trump to resign in the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol. 
 
In another sign that little short of Trump's resignation will stop impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Buffalo News Monday he won't let a Senate trial stall Biden's agenda, even if it would make it more difficult.
 
"We're going to have to do several things at once, but we got to move the agenda as well," Schumer said. "Yes, we've got to do both."
 
This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.