2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[elengil]

Why is *his* Twitter account still up?

[Dave_LF]

The screenshot is from Parler. Twitter suspended him.

[Frelga]

Yov, there's an enormous difference between a peaceful protest that is used as a cover for criminal activity and an action with the goal of invading the seat of government, blowing up RNC and DNC, and possibly taking hostages, all to disrupt a legal transfer of power and install a losing party in the office.

What, exactly, are you defending here?

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[River]

Don't forget the part where the losing party wound the mob up with a speech and invited them to take a walk to the Capitol with him (and then slunk off to watch it all unfold on TV from the Oval Office...and tweeted out something about loving them after Congress evacuated their own buildings).

[yovargas]

Under that definition, many of the BLM protests would also qualify as terrorism.

I concur, and I think I've said so before. But this was a premeditated attack on the US Capitol orchestrated by the US President with the intent of disrupting democratic proceedings to replace him. That's way, way, way (way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way) worse than the worst of what BLM did.

I'll probably bow out of this convo after this but - this may be the point of disagreement as, to my knowledge, there's no reason to think any of this was premeditated, planned, or even expected. Foreseeable? Sure. But Trump said (earlier that day I believe?) "let's march up to the capital", which is a perfectly valid form of protest. And then, as protests often do, emotions got hot, tensions got high, the crowd started getting aggressive, and then a bunch of crazy shit happened. Ugly stuff, but things getting out of control is pretty common when big protests with high emotions get together. This isn't to say that the "crazy shit" part of this wasn't *extremely* egregious - I very much hope those who broke the law here are pursued and prosecuted. But calling an emotional protest that got out of hand "terrorism" is a really, really ugly look, and I continue to find the suggestion disgusting.

And with that, I'm out.

[Dave_LF]

They were wearing T-Shirts that said "Civil War January 6." Wood has been tweeting about executing Pence for at least a week. They came prepared with explosives for destroying the party headquarters and zip ties for taking hostages.

But I, too, think I need to step away for a bit. I've barely slept since Tuesday and I'm just not going to be able to argue or think effectively until that's remedied.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

They had pipe bombs. That's not premeditated?

They had a gurney, for fucks sake.

And they had a strategic plan of attack that well-executed (to the extent that crazy can be well-executed). This was no spontaneous expression of emotion; that was a planned insurrection.

[elengil]

To Yov's point, I don't believe the whole of the crowd intended violent acts or we'd have seen a lot more weapons and items and probably more bloodshed and injuries. But whether premeditated or not, they did gleefully engage, including outside the buildings where a small crowd descended upon media equipment and destroyed it while onlookers laughed.

But there certainly was a contingent that absolutely intended violence and destruction as planned actions.

I am still appalled by the complicity of the capital officers.

[Frelga]

There have been posts on Parler and elsewhere threatening to do exactly this, so there is no question that this was not premeditated.

[N.E. Brigand]

... 25th Amendment...

Does "principal officers of the executive departments" mean only Cabinet members or does it include other so-called Cabinet-level officials? Per Wikipedia, the latter at present includes the White House Chief of Staff, the United States Trade Representative, the Director of National Intelligence, the Ambassador to the United Nations, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Administrator of the Small Business Administration.

Let's assume it's just Vice President Mike Pence plus the fifteen members of the Cabinet. Somewhere I read that Acting members don't count for this purpose. But do they count when determining how many constitutes a majority of the Cabinet? There are presently three acting members: Chris Miller as Secretary of Defense, Jeff Rosen as Attorney General, and Chad Wolf as Director of Homeland Security. Do we need eight members to support Trump's removal or only seven? Let's assume it's seven from the following twelve members:

Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State)
Steven Mnuchin (Secretary of the Treasury)
David Bernhardt (Secretary of the Interior)
Sonny Perdue (Secretary of Agriculture)
Wilbur Ross (Secretary of Commerce)
Eugene Scalia (Secretary of Labor)
Alex Azar (Secretary of Health and Human Services)
Ben Carson (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development)
Elaine Chao (Secretary of Transportation)
Dan Brouilllette (Secretary of Energy)
Betsy DeVos (Secretary of Education)
Robert Wilkie (Secretary of Veterans Affairs)

So seven of them plus Pence would have to tell Congress in writing that Trump can't do his job and they've invoked the fourth part of the 25th Amendment. Then Trump writes Congress and tells them he's fine. Then the seven plus Pence have to write Congress again (within four days) and say: no really, he's not fit. And then Congress gets (21 days) to vote.

Mike Pence is letting it be leaked to the media that he doesn't want to invoke the 25th Amendment, which makes it even likelier that Donald Trump will soon become the only President impeached twice (but probably not removed even after enabling an attack on the Capitol).

But I noticed that former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says he if we were still on the Cabinet, he would support a move to remove Trump from power. Does that mean the White House Chief of Staff, which as noted above is currently considered a Cabinet-level position, gets to vote on the 25th Amendment? It's still not clear to me, because before Kelly held that position, he was Trump's Director of Homeland Security, which is absolutely a Cabinet member, and maybe that's what he's referring to.

[Frelga]

There have been posts on Parler and elsewhere threatening to do exactly this, so there is no question that this was not premeditated.

This thread seems relevant to the above, although I haven't vetted it.
https://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1347 ... 83296?s=19

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[N.E. Brigand]

Wait, which "Gloria"?

This one?


Or this one?


I think they've got the alias that you've been hiding under.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN reports that a Capitol Police officer has died today from injuries sustained during yesterday's attempted insurrection.

He was hit on the head with a fire extinguisher.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I deleted my lighthearted post that was responding to your Gloria post. It suddenly became inappropriate.

[Frelga]

NE, posted almost simultaneously with you in the other thread.

Three others have died in yesterday's riot in addition to the officer and the woman who was shot. 55 yo man of heart attack, 50 yo man of stroke, 34 yo woman was crushed in the break into the Capitol.

All three made social media posts in support of wild, violent conspiracy theories, including those promoted by Wood.

[N.E. Brigand]

I deleted my lighthearted post that was responding to your Gloria post. It suddenly became inappropriate.

That's me, always spoiling the fun.

For those who don't know what the "Gloria" post was about: there's video of Donald Trump and his crew backstage before they spoke at yesterday's pre-riot rally, and they're prepping, and in a few cases dancing, as some warm-up music plays for the crowd. When I posted, I had only seen the music identified as "Gloria." It turns out to be the Laura Brannigan version, and the Brannigan estate is not happy.

NE, posted almost simultaneously with you in the other thread.

Three others have died in yesterday's riot in addition to the officer and the woman who was shot. 55 yo man of heart attack, 50 yo man of stroke, 34 yo woman was crushed in the break into the Capitol.

All three made social media posts in support of wild, violent conspiracy theories, including those promoted by Wood.

I had missed the reporting earlier in the day about 60 police officers having been injured, and 15 of them hospitalized, including the one who later died. Apparently a number of them were hit by protesters with metal pipes.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Chief of the Capital Police has resigned.

Frelga what is the source of that list of the causes of death? I had not seen the last one. Heather Cox Richardson said that one of the deaths was caused by someone who tazed themself, but I don't know what her source is either.

[elengil]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/p ... -said.html

The officer, whose name was not immediately released, had been hit with a fire extinguisher, the two law enforcement officials said. But it was not clear if the blunt force had killed him; a chemical agent may have led to his death, one of the officials said.

The F.B.I. is investigating his death as a possible federal murder case, the law enforcement official said.

[Frelga]

V,
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/cl ... itol-riots

[N.E. Brigand]

I deleted my lighthearted post that was responding to your Gloria post. It suddenly became inappropriate.

That's me, always spoiling the fun.

For those who don't know what the "Gloria" post was about: there's video of Donald Trump and his crew backstage before they spoke at yesterday's pre-riot rally, and they're prepping, and in a few cases dancing, as some warm-up music plays for the crowd. When I posted, I had only seen the music identified as "Gloria." It turns out to be the Laura Brannigan version, and the Brannigan estate is not happy.

NE, posted almost simultaneously with you in the other thread.

Three others have died in yesterday's riot in addition to the officer and the woman who was shot. 55 yo man of heart attack, 50 yo man of stroke, 34 yo woman was crushed in the break into the Capitol.

All three made social media posts in support of wild, violent conspiracy theories, including those promoted by Wood.

I had missed the reporting earlier in the day about 60 police officers having been injured, and 15 of them hospitalized, including the one who later died. Apparently a number of them were hit by protesters with metal pipes.

Oh man.

According to Capitol Police, no officer has died.

But while they're not explicitly saying this, one officer is going to die. The same one who was reported as having died.

He's going to be taken off life support. But not until his family is all there.

CNN and other outlets had at least two law enforcement sources saying he had already been removed from life support, but apparently the sources and thus the media got ahead of the story.

Part of the problem is that the Capitol Police don't actually have someone officially briefing the media.