A continuation of events surrounding the drug war and related social issues of Baja California and Mexico. Keeping an eye on Seig Heil Trump. We are still trying to restore all blogs from 2006 which were hacked by Linton Robinson and his team, famous for supporting the Baja Trump Towers on one of his real estate sites. Highlights of Paris-Simone's favorite music !!
When we were kids the old Irish Nuns at St. Charles Academy in Point Loma told us a lot of things that seared to our little brains and stuck. One of these was that we always need to say the "Act Of Contrition" to be completely forgiven for our sins, especially when faced with death to avoid the pangs of Purgatory and Hell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Trump is actually faced with death, but I am saying (although I know I shouldn't judge) his soul is black, and from my view, he is in big trouble with the man...who doesn't make deals.
Here are the latest updates on his outrageous behavior:
When we were kids the old Irish Nuns at St. Charles Academy in Point Loma told us a lot of things that seared to our little brains and stuck. One of these was that we always need to say the "Act Of Contrition" to be completely forgiven for our sins, especially when faced with death to avoid the pangs of Purgatory and Hell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Trump is actually faced with death, but I am saying (although I know I shouldn't judge) his soul is black, and from my view, he is in big trouble with the man...who doesn't make deals.
Here are the latest updates on his outrageous behavior:
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...???
"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.
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.
CNN's Geneva Sands, Barbara Starr and Devan Cole contributed to this report.
~~
Noted: Chad Wolfe just resigned !
Update/edit: 01/12: A must read, Juan Cole On Accelerationists:
"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.
“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.
“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.”
“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.
“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."
I submit this video as evidence in the Impeachment of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump engaged in "violent, deadly and seditious acts" which betrayed his trust as President and endangered the security of the United States. pic.twitter.com/j9nJ1McTIo
(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.
CNN's Sarah Mucha, Ali Zaslav, Alex Rogers and Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.
~~~~~
Stay Safe guys. My advise to Anti-FA: Stand down, let the Armed Forces deal with this mess. I understand you loathe Trump, but for the time being he is not worth losing your life over...don't be dumb like the Trumpista cretins.
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...???
"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.
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.
CNN's Geneva Sands, Barbara Starr and Devan Cole contributed to this report.
~~
Noted: Chad Wolfe just resigned !
Update/edit: 01/12: A must read, Juan Cole On Accelerationists:
"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.
“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.
“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.”
“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.
“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."
I submit this video as evidence in the Impeachment of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump engaged in "violent, deadly and seditious acts" which
betrayed his trust as President and endangered the security of the
United States. pic.twitter.com/j9nJ1McTIo
(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.
CNN's Sarah Mucha, Ali Zaslav, Alex Rogers and Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.
~~~~~
Stay Safe guys. My advise to Anti-FA: Stand down, let the Armed Forces deal with this mess. I understand you loathe Trump, but for the time being he is not worth losing your life over...don't be dumb like the Trumpista cretins.
Apparently it is not just a handful of people who think last Wednesday's coup attempt was an inside job. I was naive enough to think (and write here) that the FBI and our Intelligence could control the situation, and Mike laughed. 'You can't believe they have infiltrated our best law enforcement agencies, can you ?' I asked him this weekend. "They already have", was his answer. I've been unsettled now for the last five days.
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Not everyone who mobbed the Capitol on 1/6 was a terrorist, but there were many terrorists among them. Some people came armed, or with ties for taking congressional representatives and senators hostage. Some were desperately looking for Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi in order to assassinate them for, in their fevered minds, stealing the election and giving Trump’s victory treacherously to Joe Biden. Although the Capitol police had a major failure when they did not stop the breach of the building by the mob, they were remarkably successful at spiriting the politicians down to the basement and its tunnels that led to nearby offices. Otherwise the sinister events of that day, in which one policeman was deliberately crushed to death by a massed crowd in a doorway, would have claimed many more lives.
The goal of the Trump-inspired insurrection was to stop Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden as president. Trump moved on several levels to accomplish that goal. He conspired with senators to have them object to the Arizona and Pennsylvania vote counts. In fact, he was trying to convince senators to join this effort by telephone even after the Capitol had been breached and senators were being escorted to the basement, according to Mike Lee. He also tried to disrupt the proceedings by encouraging the breach of the Capitol by a flashmob and by cadres. He may have stopped security forces from being deployed, as part of his coup, to ensure that the insurrection was not stopped prematurely. When the governor of Maryland sought authorization to send that state’s National Guard, he was stonewalled for a crucial 90 minutes, during which Pence, Pelosi and others could have been killed. If they had been, it is not clear Biden’s election could have been certified in a timely manner. Trump spent December moving his ideologues into key positions at the Pentagon, likely hoping to use them to make sure the military could not be deployed at the capitol. That is, the insurrection was in part a coup.
Terrorism was defined in the 1990s US Federal code as non-state actors deploying force against civilians to achieve a political goal. The law has been tinkered with in light of Bush’s “war on terror,” but I think the Clinton-era definition has virtues for analysis since it is very clear. Only the state has a legitimate monopoly on the use of force in modern society, according to Max Weber. Terrorists are vigilantes.
Internet terrorist networks like the Trumpist have posed a challenge to law enforcement for decades, and students of terrorism have learned a great deal about them and how to combat them. The internet is a communications medium, and terrorism is all about communication. ISIL was among the best at working social media, and initially ran rings around the governments it targeted.
The use of social media by designated terrorist groups has been a horrifying success. But the use of “de-platforming,” kicking large numbers of members off platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, has been among the more effective tools in reducing the influence and operational effectiveness of groups such as ISIL.
As of Friday, the large social media platforms are treating Trump and the more virulent forms of Trumpism the way they did ISIL, de-platforming them. Trump has been banned from Twitter and Facebook. The far right wing Parler app has been kicked off Google Play and will likely be expelled from Apple Apps. The indicted fraudster Steve Bannon has lost his YouTube perch.
The Trump insurgency used the internet at several levels, just as ISIL had done. (Here, I am talking about techniques of terrorist organizations, not comparing them for brutality. Obviously, ISIL is far more murderous by orders of magnitude).
1. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (Alex Jones, Steve Bannon), the Breitbart blog and other platforms were used by Trump and his allies to build an audience for their white nationalist ideology. One of their first messages was that the Obama presidency was illegitimate because only white men can legitimately be president. This message was expressed through a conspiracy theory denying that Obama was born in the United States.
2. This messaging was expensive. Moreover, white supremacy of the old KKK sort was also disreputable. In order to succeed, a lot of money had to be thrown at the project, and white supremacy had to be put in a business suit, given Ivy League degrees, and made respectable. Hence, the term “Alt-Right,” a fancy word for Neo-Nazi. The project was not centralized. It is not clear that Robert Mercer, a computer engineer and artificial intelligence expert who came to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even knew Trump. His backing for Breitbart, however, turned a cranky little far right wing blog into a major publication with millions of hits a day. Breitbart in turn heavily backed Trump in 2015. So too did other far right cult-news sites such as Newsmax. And, of course, the media behemoth backing the New White Supremacy was Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, with an ideology I suspect is rooted in the old twentieth-century White Australia policy.
3. This vast social- and traditional-media operation helped create a mass viewership for Trumpism, a constituency from which activists could be recruited. It also helped him make inroads into the Republican Party. Trumpism, however ugly, is not synonymous with terrorism or insurrection, in fact very few Trumpists fit the definition given above. Likewise, I have pointed out that very few Muslim fundamentalists were ever terrorists, and many were quietists, avoiding politics. Still, Muslim terrorists emerged from fundamentalist backgrounds. Terrorism is a set of techniques for the attainment of a political goal, not an ideology. The father of Muhammad Amir Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, was an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member, an attorney in Giza. The father had apocalyptic dreams of social transformation but never harmed a soul. The son helped murder nearly 3,000 innocents. It is from the perfervid true believers that the operatives are recruited.
4. The internet could thus be used to recruit small numbers of terrorists from the vast fascist network that Trump and others created and to organize 1/6. White grievance was stoked, with hatred of minorities and immigrants. The network had mostly been used as a vote bank and for the purposes of propaganda, such as convincing people that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. It was, however, always available for more specialized recruitment and missions.
5. One phenomenon associated with social media organizing is the flashmob. A person could say, “Everybody meet at the mall at 3 pm on Saturday the 11th.” Sometimes it happens that such a suggestion is unexpectedly responded to by 5,000 teenagers and creates a security danger. 1/6 was in part a flashmob. Seasoned observers of white supremacist terrorist networks on the internet saw it building.
6. Those willing to engage in terrorism in the Capitol could also use social media to communicate with one another, using code words to fly under the radar of law enforcement. In the zeroes, al-Qaeda used the code word technique. An operative might refer to an operation as a “banquet” and to a bombing as a “very big meal.”
7. Aside from movement-building, terrorist-recruitment, and logistics such as the creation of a flashmob, the internet can also be used for stochastic or random terrorism. Word can be put out to unconnected, random individuals that Something Must be Done. Since these individuals are not part of organizations, they are typically not under surveillance by law enforcement and can act as lone wolves, taking the establishment by surprise. The flashmob at the Capitol on 1/6 was a mixture of social networks (people who knew each other face to face), internet networks (Facebook circles e.g.), and stochastic lone wolf terrorists. This mixture made the aims and techniques of the flashmob opaque.
ISIL had engaged in all these activities and used all these techniques ultimately to create a state and to attempt to terrorize potential Western adversaries such as France into standing down. (France was the former colonial power in Syria and Lebanon and takes a postcolonial interest in what happens there). ISIL activists were wizards at the production of slick video and the use of Twitter and Facebook for recruitment and operations.
Once it became clear how successful ISIL was in using Twitter, for example, the company launched a campaign to de-platform the terrorist organization by cancelling 125,000 accounts in 2016 alone. De-platforming on a large scale is devastating, since when an account is closed, all of its tweets are deleted and all of the connections established to other accounts are lost. Some of the success law enforcement has had against ISIL has derived from de-platforming, though of course the military victories in Syrian and Iraq against the organization were also important in demoting it from a phony “caliphate” to a small transnational terrorist organization.
For every successful counter-terrorism technique and advance, however, terrorists have found ways to evade them. That is, counter-terrorism is not the sort of endeavor where you can have a success and just keep doing things the same way. It is a contest in which the adversary constantly evolves. Even which groups are terrorist in character change over time, with previously nonviolent groups becoming violent, and vice versa.
Significant blows have been dealt to the Trump terrorist network in the past two days, but the vast well of support it has built up among less violent supporters, and among media enablers like Fox, Breitbart and Newsmax, will make it very difficult to root out."
Apparently it is not just a handful of people who think last Wednesday's coup attempt was an inside job.
I was naive enough to think (and write here) that the FBI and our
Intelligence could control the situation, and Mike laughed. 'You can't
believe they have infiltrated our best law enforcement agencies, can you
?' I asked him this weekend. "They already have", was his answer. I've
been unsettled now for the last five days.
"Ann
Arbor (Informed Comment) – Not everyone who mobbed the Capitol on 1/6
was a terrorist, but there were many terrorists among them. Some people
came armed, or with ties for taking congressional representatives and
senators hostage. Some were desperately looking for Mike Pence and
Nancy Pelosi in order to assassinate them for, in their fevered minds,
stealing the election and giving Trump’s victory treacherously to Joe
Biden. Although the Capitol police had a major failure when they did
not stop the breach of the building by the mob, they were remarkably
successful at spiriting the politicians down to the basement and its
tunnels that led to nearby offices. Otherwise the sinister events of
that day, in which one policeman was deliberately crushed to death by a
massed crowd in a doorway, would have claimed many more lives.
The goal of the Trump-inspired insurrection was to stop Congress from
certifying the election of Joe Biden as president. Trump moved on
several levels to accomplish that goal. He conspired with senators to
have them object to the Arizona and Pennsylvania vote counts. In fact,
he was trying to convince senators to join this effort by telephone even
after the Capitol had been breached and senators were being escorted to
the basement, according to Mike Lee. He also tried to disrupt the
proceedings by encouraging the breach of the Capitol by a flashmob and
by cadres. He may have stopped security forces from being deployed, as
part of his coup, to ensure that the insurrection was not stopped
prematurely. When the governor of Maryland sought authorization to send
that state’s National Guard, he was stonewalled for a crucial 90
minutes, during which Pence, Pelosi and others could have been killed.
If they had been, it is not clear Biden’s election could have been
certified in a timely manner. Trump spent December moving his
ideologues into key positions at the Pentagon, likely hoping to use them
to make sure the military could not be deployed at the capitol. That
is, the insurrection was in part a coup.
Terrorism was defined in the 1990s US Federal code as non-state
actors deploying force against civilians to achieve a political goal.
The law has been tinkered with in light of Bush’s “war on terror,” but I
think the Clinton-era definition has virtues for analysis since it is
very clear. Only the state has a legitimate monopoly on the use of
force in modern society, according to Max Weber. Terrorists are
vigilantes.
Internet terrorist networks like the Trumpist have posed a challenge
to law enforcement for decades, and students of terrorism have learned a
great deal about them and how to combat them. The internet is a
communications medium, and terrorism is all about communication. ISIL
was among the best at working social media, and initially ran rings
around the governments it targeted.
The use of social media by designated terrorist groups has been a
horrifying success. But the use of “de-platforming,” kicking large
numbers of members off platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, has been
among the more effective tools in reducing the influence and operational
effectiveness of groups such as ISIL.
As of Friday, the large social media platforms are treating Trump and
the more virulent forms of Trumpism the way they did ISIL,
de-platforming them. Trump has been banned from Twitter and Facebook.
The far right wing Parler app has been kicked off Google Play and will
likely be expelled from Apple Apps. The indicted fraudster Steve Bannon
has lost his YouTube perch.
The Trump insurgency used the internet at several levels, just as
ISIL had done. (Here, I am talking about techniques of terrorist
organizations, not comparing them for brutality. Obviously, ISIL is far
more murderous by orders of magnitude).
1. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (Alex Jones, Steve Bannon), the
Breitbart blog and other platforms were used by Trump and his allies to
build an audience for their white nationalist ideology. One of their
first messages was that the Obama presidency was illegitimate because
only white men can legitimately be president. This message was
expressed through a conspiracy theory denying that Obama was born in the
United States.
2. This messaging was expensive. Moreover, white supremacy of the
old KKK sort was also disreputable. In order to succeed, a lot of money
had to be thrown at the project, and white supremacy had to be put in a
business suit, given Ivy League degrees, and made respectable. Hence,
the term “Alt-Right,” a fancy word for Neo-Nazi. The project was not
centralized. It is not clear that Robert Mercer, a computer engineer
and artificial intelligence expert who came to be worth hundreds of
millions of dollars, even knew Trump. His backing for Breitbart,
however, turned a cranky little far right wing blog into a major
publication with millions of hits a day. Breitbart in turn heavily
backed Trump in 2015. So too did other far right cult-news sites such as
Newsmax. And, of course, the media behemoth backing the New White
Supremacy was Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, with an ideology I suspect is
rooted in the old twentieth-century White Australia policy.
3. This vast social- and traditional-media operation helped create a
mass viewership for Trumpism, a constituency from which activists could
be recruited. It also helped him make inroads into the Republican Party.
Trumpism, however ugly, is not synonymous with terrorism or
insurrection, in fact very few Trumpists fit the definition given above.
Likewise, I have pointed out that very few Muslim fundamentalists were
ever terrorists, and many were quietists, avoiding politics. Still,
Muslim terrorists emerged from fundamentalist backgrounds. Terrorism is
a set of techniques for the attainment of a political goal, not an
ideology. The father of Muhammad Amir Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11,
was an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member, an attorney in Giza. The
father had apocalyptic dreams of social transformation but never harmed a
soul. The son helped murder nearly 3,000 innocents. It is from the
perfervid true believers that the operatives are recruited.
4. The internet could thus be used to recruit small numbers of
terrorists from the vast fascist network that Trump and others created
and to organize 1/6. White grievance was stoked, with hatred of
minorities and immigrants. The network had mostly been used as a vote
bank and for the purposes of propaganda, such as convincing people that
Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of a pizzeria in Washington,
D.C. It was, however, always available for more specialized recruitment
and missions.
5. One phenomenon associated with social media organizing is the
flashmob. A person could say, “Everybody meet at the mall at 3 pm on
Saturday the 11th.” Sometimes it happens that such a suggestion is
unexpectedly responded to by 5,000 teenagers and creates a security
danger. 1/6 was in part a flashmob. Seasoned observers of white supremacist terrorist networks on the internet saw it building.
6. Those willing to engage in terrorism in the Capitol could also use
social media to communicate with one another, using code words to fly
under the radar of law enforcement. In the zeroes, al-Qaeda used the
code word technique. An operative might refer to an operation as a
“banquet” and to a bombing as a “very big meal.”
7. Aside from movement-building, terrorist-recruitment, and
logistics such as the creation of a flashmob, the internet can also be
used for stochastic or random terrorism. Word can be put out to
unconnected, random individuals that Something Must be Done. Since these
individuals are not part of organizations, they are typically not under
surveillance by law enforcement and can act as lone wolves, taking the
establishment by surprise. The flashmob at the Capitol on 1/6 was a
mixture of social networks (people who knew each other face to face),
internet networks (Facebook circles e.g.), and stochastic lone wolf
terrorists. This mixture made the aims and techniques of the flashmob
opaque.
ISIL had engaged in all these activities and used all these
techniques ultimately to create a state and to attempt to terrorize
potential Western adversaries such as France into standing down.
(France was the former colonial power in Syria and Lebanon and takes a
postcolonial interest in what happens there). ISIL activists were
wizards at the production of slick video and the use of Twitter and
Facebook for recruitment and operations.
Once it became clear how successful ISIL was in using Twitter, for
example, the company launched a campaign to de-platform the terrorist
organization by cancelling 125,000 accounts in 2016 alone. De-platforming on a large scale is devastating,
since when an account is closed, all of its tweets are deleted and all
of the connections established to other accounts are lost. Some of the
success law enforcement has had against ISIL has derived from
de-platforming, though of course the military victories in Syrian and
Iraq against the organization were also important in demoting it from a
phony “caliphate” to a small transnational terrorist organization.
For every successful counter-terrorism technique and advance,
however, terrorists have found ways to evade them. That is,
counter-terrorism is not the sort of endeavor where you can have a
success and just keep doing things the same way. It is a contest in
which the adversary constantly evolves. Even which groups are terrorist
in character change over time, with previously nonviolent groups
becoming violent, and vice versa.
Significant blows have been dealt to the Trump terrorist network in
the past two days, but the vast well of support it has built up among
less violent supporters, and among media enablers like Fox, Breitbart
and Newsmax, will make it very difficult to root out."