Goebbels and the New American Terror

Following-up from yesterday, "America's 'Reichstag Fire'."

See Caroline Glick:

What purpose did it serve for President-elect Joe Biden to liken Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) to Adolf Hitler’s top propagandist Joseph Goebbels?

In response to a question about the two Republican lawmakers following remarks on January 8, Biden said, “I was being reminded by a friend of mine…when we’re told [about] Goebbels and the great lie, you keep repeating the lie, repeating the lie.”

Although Biden’s comparison was imperfectly stated, it was clear enough to follow. He was saying that the lawmakers’ efforts to challenge the Electoral College votes from disputed states was a Nazi-like effort.

By speaking this way, Biden did many things at once. First, he whitewashed Goebbels’ barbaric crimes. Goebbels was the chief architect of totalitarianism in Nazi Germany and one of the lead architects of the Holocaust.

In his literary warning about the fragility of freedom and the allure of totalitarianism, 1984, George Orwell demonstrated that total control over a society is achieved through total control over the information its members can see.

Goebbels implemented this in Nazi Germany. As Hitler’s propagandist, Goebbels exerted total control over information. He ensured that Germans would view Hitler as their infallible savior. He conditioned them to view Jews as subhuman vermin, to be exterminated like cockroaches. And he made them believe that all Germans who didn’t accept what they were told were enemies of the people.

Goebbels achieved all of these things by blocking public access to accurate information while inundating the Germans with images and words that repeated and amplified his monstrous lies. Goebbels’ success in controlling information was the necessary precondition for all he and his comrades unleashed on Jews, and on humanity as a whole.

The second thing Biden did by comparing Hawley and Cruz to Goebbels was to whitewash the unspeakable crimes of Nazi Germany. After all, if merely questioning certain election returns is the moral equivalent of Goebbels’ “Big Lie,” then the Big Lie was actually no big deal.

The third thing Biden did by comparing Hawley and Cruz to Goebbels was set them up for what Orwell referred to as “un-personing”—or in today’s culture, “canceling.”

Obviously, if Cruz and Hawley are Goebbels, then all right-thinking people must work to silence them and remove them from positions of influence in the Senate and larger society.

As if on cue, shortly after Biden said what he did, Senate Democrats began debating whether to censure the lawmakers. Senate Republicans, for their part, began discussing the possibility of denying the two members cherished committee assignments. According to Senate officials, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is leaning toward denying the two their subcommittee chairmanships—thereby removing them from the line of seniority.

Outside the Senate chamber, major corporate donors also announced they will cease all political contributions to the two men, and to all 149 federal lawmakers who supported the efforts to challenge election returns from various states. Simon & Schuster canceled its contract to publish Hawley’s forthcoming book about the tyranny of Big Tech.

And this brings us to the fourth thing that Biden did by comparing the two senators to Hitler’s satanic propagandist. Whether one supports or opposes their decision to formally raise questions about the Electoral College vote count, the indisputable fact is that their actions were both legal and widely supported by their constituents. A Rasmussen poll released on January 6 found that 52 percent of politically unaffiliated Americans were less than fully confident about the integrity of the election results. The senators, and their colleagues in both houses who worked with them, noted that they had been flooded by requests from their constituents to question the returns from the states in question—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.

Cruz and Hawley incited no riots. To the contrary, they tried to channel the concerns of voters the American way—through constitutional, peaceful deliberations in Congress. Cruz, for his part, denounced the January 6 riot in real time, referring to it as “a despicable act of terrorism.”

By conflating the constitutional, democratic behavior of the senators and their colleagues with Goebbels’ crimes, Biden accomplished a fifth goal. He demonized as Nazis these officials’ voters who had urged them to act—and by extension, threw under the bus the shockingly high percentage of Americans who questioned the election returns.

Of course, Biden’s statement wasn’t made in isolation. He spoke after Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had banned Trump from their platforms and begun a purge of the accounts of his supporters—and as other major private sector actors openly called for the “un-personing” of Trump’s advisers and supporters.

Forbes Editor Randall Lane, for instance, announced he would destroy any business that hires Trump’s spokespeople. In his words, “Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists…and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. …Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away!”

The Lincoln Project, an influence outfit run by former Republicans now serving Democrats by demonizing Republicans, announced it was working to have all Trump administration officials blacklisted.

“We are constructing a database of Trump officials and staff that will detail their roles in the Trump administration and track where they are now. …They will be held accountable and not allowed to pretend they were not involved,” the group tweeted.

Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank announced they were closing Trump’s accounts. Payment processors such as PayPal, Shopify and Stripe cut off the Trump campaign and Trump merchandising stores.

These actions are of a piece with earlier actions by financial giants like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and others that announced last month they will require their clients to hire women and LGBT persons to their corporate boards, adopt approved green policies, and reveal their political contributions, lobbying contacts and trade association memberships as conditions for continuing to receive financial services.

All of these repressive statements and actions provided both the impetus for, and the legitimization of, the coordinated action taken last weekend by tech oligarchs Google, Apple and Amazon to destroy Parler, the free speech social media platform launched two years ago.

As law professor William Jacobson documented on his Legal Insurrection website, there is no evidence to support the tech giants’ implicit claim that Parler was in any way responsible for the Capitol Hill riot. Indeed, as Jacobson showed, it was Facebook, not Parler, that the organizers of the violent events had relied upon to mobilize their supporters.

The reason Google, Apple and Amazon destroyed Parler was not because it had done anything wrong. They destroyed Parler because it did everything right. For years, Big Tech oligarchs brushed off criticism that they operated as monopolies by insisting that everyone remains free to create platforms and compete with them. And as their viewpoint censorship of conservatives became more aggressive in recent years and reached new heights during the 2020 election, demand for alternatives continued to grow.

Parler wasn’t a Trump affiliate. It wasn’t a political instrument. It was simply a free speech platform. It was an alternative. And so it was destroyed. The social media users who wish to leave Twitter and Facebook now have no comparable alternative venue. So they are compelled to remain and live within the platforms’ increasingly repressive rules.

A sense of foreboding and fear now grips millions of Americans—and, indeed, conservatives worldwide. Unless something is done quickly by those who wield power to restore freedom, it is impossible to see a happy end to this story.

Charges Leveled at Men Accused of Assaulting Police With Flag, Fire Extinguisher in Capitol Riot

No surprise. The "authorities" are cracking down. Never forget the Reichstag fire.

At WSJ, "Man carrying Confederate flag in Capitol was also charged":

Federal prosecutors escalated their efforts Thursday to target some of the more brazen violent conduct from last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, charging a retired firefighter who they say threw a fire extinguisher at three police officers and another man who allegedly beat a police officer repeatedly with an American flag.

Robert Sanford of Chester, Pa., faces charges including assaulting a police officer after he was allegedly identified as the person who lobbed a fire extinguisher on the west side of the Capitol, at around 2:30 p.m., as the mob crashed past a thin line of Capitol police officers and stormed toward the building on Jan. 6.

Around the same time, a radio dispatch captured by OpenMHZ, a platform that records radio chatter from law enforcement and other agencies, relayed: “There is a 10-33 at the Capitol building. It has been breached,” using a code that signifies an emergency in which an officer needs assistance.

The prosecution’s statement of facts in the case described the fire extinguisher hitting three officers in the head, including one who wasn’t wearing a helmet. Officials said the extinguisher Mr. Sanford allegedly threw isn’t the one that killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was also struck in the head with a fire extinguisher during the unrest and died from his wounds, officials said.

William Young, one of the officers who was hit in the incident allegedly involving Mr. Sanford, was evaluated at a hospital and cleared to return to duty, the charging document said. A friend of Mr. Sanford tipped off the FBI to his involvement, the document said, adding that he was around 55 years old and had recently retired from the Chester Fire Department.

Mr. Sanford’ charges include using a deadly weapon in a restricted area, which carries a potential 10-year prison term, disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and obstructing law enforcement.

The charges against Mr. Sanford, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, come as prosecutors have filed dozens of cases against the most visible participants in the riot, many of whose efforts were widely broadcast on social media, including one video showing a man beating a police officer with an American flag at the Capitol riot.

An Arkansas man identified in court documents as Peter Stager was charged Thursday with obstructing a law-enforcement officer in connection with that incident. The officer from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department was guarding an entrance of the U.S. Capitol after 4 p.m., when members of the mob grabbed him, dragged him down a set of stairs, forced him into a prone position and proceeded to forcibly and repeatedly strike him, according to an affidavit from FBI agent Jason Coe.

The document identified the Washington police officer only as B.M., saying it was anonymizing victims and witnesses. The Metropolitan Police Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A confidential informant recognized Mr. Stager from videos posted online in social media and notified the FBI on Tuesday, the documents said. One video, cited in the documents, showed Mr. Stager saying: “Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building.”

Mr. Stager had told his associate he planned to turn himself in to law enforcement for his actions, the document, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, said. A man reached by telephone at a number associated with Mr. Stager had no immediate comment...

Still more. 

America's 'Reichstag Fire'

At Theo's , "Let's be very CLEAR. The Capitol event was America's "Reichstag Fire" and was staged by the Left (Antifa-BLM) to 'seal the steal'."

Frankly, that's the best analogy I can come up with myself. In fact, last night I was reading William Shirer's, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which has a long section on the both the fire and the political machinations. 

The Nazis were lucky, as apparently there was one actual communist who had entered the building that day to set fires, shortly before Goebbels and Goering's "Brown Shirts" stormed the building with containers of gasoline. Once the fuse was lit, with flames reaching higher than surrounding rooftops, and having their scapegoat, Goebbels and Goering seized the moment, to "never let a crisis go to waste," and initiated the massive crackdown on dissent that culminated in the passage of Hitler's "Enabling Act of 1933." This law literally gave all legislative power to the chancellor's office. The national parliamentary elections held shortly thereafter were completely rigged, with members of opposition parties banned from the building, attacked by Brown Shirt mobs, and in many case, murdered in summary executions after the fact. 

As we're seeing more news that the Capitol riot was planned days in advance, the leftist narrative that Trump "incited" the riot is completely falling apart. 

Know your history, people. The truth is starting to trickle out, and it's going to redound to the everlasting regret of our leftist domestic enemies and literal terrorists (see Portland, Oregon). 

Wedgie Wednesday

At Drunken Stepfather, "WEDGIE WEDNESDAY OF THE DAY."

John Eastman Resigns From Chapman University Law School

 At Instapundit, "Well, if you’re a lefty you can be an unrepentant terror-bomber and get a cushy slot at a top university. But if you peacefully speak at a rally for the right, well, you get this: 'Law Prof John Eastman Retires From Chapman ‘Effective Immediately’ Amidst Uproar Over Speaking At Trump Rally Last Wednesday'."

Here's the letter, originally published at the American Mind:

It is with mixed feeling that I announce my retirement from Chapman University today. Apart from prominent visitorships at the University of San Diego and the University of Colorado Boulder, my entire academic career has been as a professor and Dean at the Chapman University Fowler School of Law.

During my tenure as Dean, the law school achieved the highest national ranking it has achieved to date, moving from 163rd to 93rd in that short three-year period between 2007 and 2010. I wish Dean Parlow much success in regaining and surpassing that high water mark.

I have also enjoyed a strong working relationship with the University’s current President, Daniele Struppa, dating to my Deanship when he was serving as the University’s Provost and Chancellor. And I applaud his defense of me in particular and academic freedom more generally in this recent controversy.

But I cannot extend such praise to some of my “colleagues” on the campus or to the few members of the Board of Trustees who have published false, defamatory statements about me without even the courtesy of contacting me beforehand to discuss. The political science faculty, for example, made numerous false statements of fact and law in their diatribe against me. They asserted, for example, that I have made “false claims” about the 2020 presidential election which “have no basis in fact or law and seek to harm the democratic foundations of our constitutional republic.”

Had they bothered to discuss the matter with me, they could have learned that every statement I have made is backed up with documentary and/or expert evidence, and solidly grounded in law. For example, it is a fact that partisan election officials and even partisan-elected judicial officials in numerous states altered or ignored existing state laws in the conduct of the election, the instances of which are well documented in the petition for writ of certiorari I filed in the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of the President. And it is clearly established law that Article II of the Constitution assigns to the legislatures of the state, not anyone else, the sole, plenary power to determine the “manner” for choosing presidential electors. And it is a fact that numerous legislators wrote to Vice President Pence indicating that their electoral votes were problematic at best because of these illegalities and urging him to delay the electoral count proceedings long enough to allow the legislatures in the contested states time to review whether their electoral slate was legally certified.

By way of example, 21 members of the Pennsylvania Senate, including the powerful President Pro Tem of the Senate, outlined in a January 4 letter the numerous instances of violations of state law by state election officials and even the partisan-elected judiciary in the conduct of Pennsylvania’s election, thereby usurping the sole power that the Legislature has pursuant to Article II of the federal constitution to determine the manner for choosing presidential electors. Because of those illegal actions, the Senators noted “that PA election results should not have been certified,” and asked that the Congress “delay certification of the Electoral College to allow due process as we pursue election integrity in our Commonwealth.” Similar letters were sent from Pennsylvania house members, and from legislators in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Arizona’s included this: “Based upon the clear and convincing nature of the evidence [of illegality and fraud], we respectfully ask that you recognize our desire to reclaim Arizona’s Electoral College Electors and block the use of any Electors from Arizona until such time as the controversy is properly resolved through the pending litigation or a comprehensive forensic audit.”

It is also a fact that a forensic analysis of the one voting machine courts have permitted to be inspected demonstrated not only that the machines are capable of switching votes, but they actually did switch votes in Antrim County, Michigan.

In other words, it is patently untrue that my statements have “no basis in fact or law.”

As for the claim that by raising these issues, I have sought to “harm the democratic foundations of our constitutional republic,” nothing could be further from the truth. As noted above, the Constitution sets out the authority for choosing electors, and that authority was usurped by non-legislative partisans in several states. Legislators in the contested states have quite reasonably asserted that the illegal conduct effected the outcome of the election. If true—and a full forensic audit would confirm whether or not it is true—then the democratic foundations of our constitutional republic were not just harmed but completely subverted by those partisan actors who violated election laws in order to permit the counting of illegal votes. Shining a light on what occurred is the highest defense of the constitutional republic, and such an investigation ought to be welcomed by citizens of all political stripes rather than blocked by those who are acting as though they have something to hide.

The letter signed by 169 members of the Chapman faculty and Board of Trustees is even more scurrilous. It claims, falsely, that I “participated in a riot that incited” last week’s violence at the nation’s Capital. I participated in a peaceful rally of nearly ½ million people, two miles away from the violence that occurred at the capital and which began even before the speeches were finished. And unless simply identifying illegal actions by election officials qualifies as “incitement”—under the law and well- established Supreme Court precedent, it clearly does not—then this charge is really an attempt to shut down the exercise of First Amendment rights. Nor did I “spout lies” about secret folders in the machines—the forensic audit discussed above has identified the suspension files in the software. Neither is there anything “conspiratorial” about simply identifying the available evidence.

I am grateful that not a single one of my colleagues at the Law School signed such a defamatory letter. To my knowledge, not one of the faculty signers has a law degree, and the three members of the Board of Trustees who are lawyers (and hyper-partisan Democrats) are clearly not well-versed in the constitutional questions at issue—either the Article II role of legislatures, or the definition of the “incitement” exception to the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. Nevertheless, these 169 have created such a hostile environment for me that I no longer wish to be a member of the Chapman faculty, and am therefore retiring from my position, effective immediately. I am currently on leave from Chapman while serving as the Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder, so my mid-year retirement will not have any impact on my Chapman students. Once that visitorship is concluded, I plan to devote my full-time efforts to the Claremont Institute and its Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, which I direct.

Still more, "Statement from the Office of the President."

The Real Reason Most Republicans Opposed Impeachment

It's Ben Shapiro, at Politico's Playbook, via Memeorandum:

Howdy from Nashville, y’all! I’m BEN SHAPIRO, and I host the conservative podcast and radio show “The Ben Shapiro Show”; I’m also editor emeritus of the Daily Wire, husband to a medical doctor, and father to three children who run me more ragged than the news cycle.

Or at least they used to, before all time was condensed into a political gravitational singularity, where one day is several years long.

So, let’s get to it.

The big news of the day, of course, is the House’s impeachment of President DONALD J. TRUMP for the second time in just over a year. It was a foregone conclusion that the Democratic House would do so — the only question was how many Republicans would vote along with Democrats to impeach Trump over his behavior leading up to and surrounding the Capitol riot.

In the end, 10 did — ranging from Rep. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.), the third-ranking Republican in the House, who called openly and clearly for impeachment; to Rep. FRED UPTON (R-Mich.), who said he’d prefer censure but that he’d settle for impeachment.

The spotlight immediately moved to Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL, who now says that he hasn’t made up his mind on impeachment. It seems he’ll leave Republicans to their own devices on the Senate vote when it takes place.

Many in the media seem bewildered that House Republicans didn’t unanimously join Democrats in supporting impeachment (looking at you, Playbook readers in the media) — after all, Republicans were in the building when rioters broke through, seeking to do them grievous physical harm. My Republican sources tell me that opposition to impeachment doesn’t spring from generalized sanguinity over Trump’s behavior: I’ve been receiving calls and texts for more than a week from elected Republicans heartsick over what they saw in the Capitol.

Opposition to impeachment comes from a deep and abiding conservative belief that members of the opposing political tribe want their destruction, not simply to punish Trump for his behavior. Republicans believe that Democrats and the overwhelmingly liberal media see impeachment as an attempt to cudgel them collectively by lumping them in with the Capitol rioters thanks to their support for Trump.

The evidence for that position isn’t difficult to find.

Sen. RON WYDEN (D-Ore.) suggested this week at NBCNews.com that the only way to prevent a repeat of the Capitol riot was endorsement of a full slate of Democratic agenda items. Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.) suggested that “Southern states are not red states, they are suppressed states, which means the only way that our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of Southern states …” And PAUL KRUGMAN of The New York Times placed blame for the Capitol riots on the entire Republican Party infrastructure: “This Putsch Was Decades In The Making.”

Unity looks a lot like “sign onto our agenda, or be lumped in with the Capitol rioters.”

More.

And at the Daily Beast (safe link), "‘Mischief Making’: Politico Boss Defends Handing Playbook Over to Right-Wing Bombthrower Ben Shapiro."

Andrew Marantz, Antisocial

 At Amazon, Andrew Marantz, Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation. 

The Debate Over 'Fascism'

It's Jennifer Szalai, at NYT (FWIW), "CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK The Debate Over the Word ‘Fascism’ Takes a New Turn":

But the critique of fascism analogies runs deeper than whatever it is Trump says or does. Moyn suggests that crying fascism obscures the extent to which Trump is a thoroughly American creature while also exonerating the establishment rot that allowed him to flourish in the first place. Corey Robin, in an updated edition of his book “The Reactionary Mind,” has argued something similar. Both Robin and Moyn seem animated by a similar suspicion — that fascist analogies ultimately serve centrists trying to gin up fear among the left, pushing progressives to settle for expedient political choices by overstating the strength of a floundering right.

Robin cites a modern classic by the historian Robert O. Paxton, “The Anatomy of Fascism,” to attest that what made the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler so potent was its youth and its novelty, an advantage forsaken by a lumbering and nostalgic Trump. But one of the most striking aspects of Paxton’s book, which was published in 2004, is how much attention he shines on the circumstances that allowed for fascism’s emergence in the early 20th century and its subsequent rise.

Paxton wasn’t laboring under the same conditions as current writers, who get drawn into endless debates over whether Trump is or is not a fascist. Historically, fascist movements hardened into fascist regimes when given the opportunity by enfeebled conservative elites trying to cling to power, who resort to bringing in an outsider to rile up the base. It was only after the Nazis started losing electoral support that Hitler cut a back-room deal to be appointed chancellor. Like a vampire, Hitler had to be invited into the house...

The best way to respond to leftist books on fascism is to read them and rip them. Shred them to oblivion with your hardest-hitting critiques. As I always say, "Know your enemies."

Now's a particularly good time. The Harris administration is going to test our founding principles in ways that'll make the last four years look like a long and relaxing vacation.

Staying Sane in a World Gone Mad

It's Robert Stacy McCain, at the American Spectator, "You’re not crazy; it’s the media who have lost their minds."

Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver Accused of 'Grooming' Young Men, Offering Jobs for Sex

At Red State, "More 'Grooming for Sex' Allegations Surface Against Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver."

And at the Other McCain, "Far Be It From Me to Repeat Salacious Gossip About RINO Backstabbers, But …"  

Psychological Analysis of the Capitol Riot

From a former colleague of mine, on Facebook:

This morning, I decided to watch Trump’s inaugural speech for the first time. It is the best speech I have ever seen him give. I can see why his followers were enthusiastic about him, as it was the epitome of a populist message. He sounded as though the public’s interest was the only thing that mattered to him. He seemed much more together and credible than that he does today. Too bad it was just rhetoric. It has become patently clear that, true to what is typical with narcissistic tendencies, Trump only cares about himself. Much lower down on the scale of concern are the current Trump loyalists, although they are prone to being thrown overboard whenever they cross him. It’s all so predictable, when you know the features of a narcissistic personality disorder (not to mention an antisocial personality disorder).

*****

To me, a former Republican, who feels that the party left me before I left it, the current Republican party seems to consist of delusional people, such as the QAnon folks; white supremacist groups; haters, who are [the] most scary at all, because they are directionless and have been observed to swing 180 degrees in their targets, but just seek some group to vilify; religious fundamentalists who are essentially one-issue voters and thus willing to sell their souls to the devil in a Faustian bargain in order to protect the unborn; and rational conservatives who wear masks, socially distance, well know that Biden won the election fair-and-square, but still believe that despite his massive character flaws, autocratic bent, and disregard for anyone but himself, Trump is still better for them and the country than those horrid Democrats. I suppose another category would be the ambitious politicians and corporate people who seek personal benefit from backing Trump, and care about little else. Although not Republicans, I would be remiss not to mention Putin, et al. as staunch supporters of Trump. I don't see any heroes here. Did I miss a group of noble Republicans that I missed because of my partisan blinders?

*****

Excuse me, I did miss one group of noble Republicans, those who established The Lincoln Project. They have sought to cajole their fellow Republicans into embracing the traditional values of their party. Out of concern for the survival of our democracy, and a desire to return the Republican party to the respectable values it has traditionally embraced, this group has been tireless in their efforts to bring our national politics back to normal.

"Noble Republicans."

Hardly.  *Shrugs.*

Glenn Greenwald Decries the Left's New 'War on Terror' (VIDEO)

If you're familiar with Glenn Greenwald, he's not necessarily a sympathetic character. But he's been out here for a long time, and for good or bad (sometimes very bad, considering his views on Israel, his collaborations with Julian Assange, etc.), he's consistent. I think for that, in a time like this, folks who normally would ignore him are ready to listen. 

I mean, he's now a regular on Fox News, if you can imagine that. 

With all that said, he's not wrong on this, and it's frightening. 

He's on Substack here, "Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath":

One is that striking at cherished national symbols — the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Capitol — ensures rage and terror far beyond body counts or other concrete harms. That is one major reason that yesterday’s event received far more attention and commentary, and will likely produce far greater consequences, than much deadlier incidents, such as the still-motive-unknown 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 59 or the 2016 Orlando shooting that left 49 dead at the Pulse nightclub. Unlike even horrific indiscriminate shooting sprees, an attack on a symbol of national power will be perceived as an attack on the state or even the society itself.

There are other, more important historical lessons to draw not only from the 9/11 attack but subsequent terrorism on U.S. soil. One is the importance of resisting the coercive framework that demands everyone choose one of two extremes: that the incident is either (a) insignificant or even justifiable, or (b) is an earth-shattering, radically transformative event that demands radical, transformative state responses.

This reductive, binary framework is anti-intellectual and dangerous. One can condemn a particular act while resisting the attempt to inflate the dangers it poses. One can acknowledge the very real existence of a threat while also warning of the harms, often far greater, from proposed solutions. One can reject maximalist, inflammatory rhetoric about an attack (a War of Civilizations, an attempted coup, an insurrection, sedition) without being fairly accused of indifference toward or sympathy for the attackers.

Indeed, the primary focus of the first decade of my journalism was the U.S. War on Terror — in particular, the relentless erosions of civil liberties and the endless militarization of American society in the name of waging it. To make the case that those trends should be opposed, I frequently argued that the threat posed by Islamic radicalism to U.S. citizens was being deliberately exaggerated, inflated and melodramatized.

I argued that not because I believed the threat was nonexistent or trivial: I lived in New York City on 9/11 and remember to this day the excruciating horror from the smell and smoke emanating throughout Lower Manhattan and the haunting “missing” posters appended by desperate families, unwilling to accept the obvious reality of their loved ones’ deaths, to every lamp post on every street corner. I shared the same disgust and sadness as most other Americans from the Pulse massacre, the subway bombings in London and Madrid, the workplace mass shooting in San Bernardino.

My insistence that we look at the other side of the ledger — the costs and dangers not only from such attacks but also the “solutions” implemented in the name of the stopping them — did not come from indifference towards those deaths or a naive views of those responsible for them. It was instead driven by my simultaneous recognition of the dangers from rights-eroding, authoritarian reactions imposed by the state, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. One need not engage in denialism or minimization of a threat to rationally resist fear-driven fanaticism — as Barbara Lee so eloquently insisted on September 14, 2001...

Lots more at that top link.

'I won't apologize, for acting outta line. You see the way I am, you leave any time you can, 'cuz ... I'm crazy and I'm hurt. Head on my shoulders. Going ... berserk...'

I'm not leaving Facebook nor Twitter. 

"I'm going to rant like a mofo for the next four years. Won't change a thing, of course, but it gets the aggression out, at least. Better here [Facebook] than elsewhere, wtf?"

Who Controls the Narrative?

Hmm.

It's going to be one helluva long fight, people. 

More Powerful Than the President of the United States?

 There's no "debate" over "publisher" or "platform" anymore.

This man, Mark Zuckerberg, is a danger to the Republic. Full stop. Unchecked power. He has no corporate board to rein him in. He can do whatever he wants with his platform, unless government regulators step in --- and they won't, because the bipartisan swamp in D.C. loves him and loves his suppression of dissent. 

And so-called "progressives" are warning about a "coup"? Pfft. Gimme a break, will ya?

Signs of Leftist Fifth Column Everywhere

 The left is America's "fifth column":

By the late 1930s, as American involvement in the war in Europe became more likely, the term "fifth column" was commonly used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders of the United States. The fear of betrayal was heightened by the rapid fall of France in 1940, which some blamed on internal weakness and a pro-German "fifth column". A series of photos run in the June 1940 issue of Life magazine warned of "signs of Nazi Fifth Column Everywhere". In a speech to the House of Commons that same month, Winston Churchill reassured MPs that "Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand." In July 1940, Time magazine referred to talk of a fifth column as a "national phenomenon". 

With the left’s crackdown on civil liberties and free speech, the Democrat Party and its Antifa/BLM minions are the real threat to the Republic. Gird your loins, patriots!

Hey, Twitter, Are You Sure About This?

 It's John Harris, no stranger to the need for alternative media, at Politico, which he co-founded:

For a half-century, the trend in political culture has been inexorably in one direction: toward the steady loosening and eventually the near-obliteration of media filters.

If someone has a voice that other people want to hear, that voice is going to be heard. No smug editor at the New York Times or damn anchorman at CBS News is going to get in the way. Who the hell elected them, after all, to decide what points of view were worthy of dissemination, what facts or rumors or even flat falsehoods should reach average citizens, who could decide for themselves what to make of it?

The erosion of traditional establishment filters — first by such mediums as direct mail, talk radio and cable, later and most powerfully by social media — has been a primary factor in the rise of potent ideological movements on right and left alike.

It is why the election and bizarre presidency of an insurgent disruptor like Donald J. Trump — inconceivable in the 20th century era of establishment media—was eminently conceivable in this era.

And it is why the decision Friday night by Twitter to permanently ban Trump from its platform is a signal moment — a historic move, even before we know the consequences that will flow from it.

It represents an effort to reassert the notion that filters have a place in political communication and that some voices have lost their claim on public legitimacy — even when that voice has 89 million followers and is just two months past receiving the second-highest number of votes in U.S. election history.

Twitter’s announcement was made with a righteous air, as the company said it was acting “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after Trump’s raucous lies about a stolen election inspired backers to take over the Capitol on Wednesday. Across a wide spectrum of politicians and commentators, there were exultations of relief, many mingled with it’s-about-time exasperation.

Twitter’s move is plainly an effort to act responsibly in the face of Trump’s irresponsible words and actions.

Even so, the question seems unavoidable: Are you sure about this?

Still more.

 

Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.

Following-up, "Matt Taibbi on the Capital Fiasco (VIDEO)."

At Amazon, "Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another.

Matt Taibbi on the Capital Fiasco (VIDEO)

It's worth a listen:

'Oh, my goodness. The gloves are completely off now...'

That's Robert Stacy McCain responding to this:

Tessa Fowler in Slow Motion

Ms. Tessa's not holding back these day, dang!

WATCH: "[Ms. Tessa in] Slow Motion."

I'm Not Quitting Facebook and Twitter

They can boot me off, but I'm staying on these platforms for the fight:

Gonna quit social media if I’m booted off Facebook and Twitter. The fight is on these platforms, not Parler, Gab, etc., which are mere echo chamber outlets with no power.

See Arlen Williams as well: 

Nikki Richards Speaks Out!

She used to have a blog, like 10 years ago, and I lost contact with her.

But she posted on Facebook yesterday, and, I mean, wow! She's got it! 

Before I completely delete my account from Facebook and most of social mafia, I have something to say. This assault on free speech is disturbing and should terrify EVERYONE. These are the rights our government should be protecting and now they are promoting the silencing of millions. Conservative platforms are being removed and censored, not just the President, but his supporters and those with monetized platforms. This is America, and now my fellow citizens you have only one view that you are being fed by the media. You will be next. Soon your speech will be censored too. The reactivation of my Facebook account was met by community standards violations that were mere articles from conservative sources. The civil rights of millions were taken away the past couple of days and you all are silent. Your rights are next, unless you comply with the left. The exchange of ideas and debate is over. You may despise Trump and his so called rhetoric but now that is the excuse for silencing millions. And ask yourself what your current rhetoric is towards Trump supporters. Are you feeding a tyrannical silencing? The information you are getting from the MSM IS FALSE. You are all on the WRONG SIDE OF THIS FIGHT. PS. Parler is being shut down by the Apple and Google platforms unless they comply with their censorship guidelines. Afraid yet? You should be.

PPS. With a dominant Democratic congress and executive branch, this will only get worse.

 

'There will be all sorts of depredations visited upon us by those who wield all the influence of culture, academia, and state...'

 It's Krakatoa, at AoSHQ, "EMT 1/9/21 - The Stupid Edition":

Don't do stupid things.

Take it from a moron: You know they are stupid, deep down, when you have to tell other people, often relative strangers, all about the stupid thing you really want to do hoping for some validation and fellowship.

At that point, even if that thing wasn't really stupid to begin with , it turned stupid once it left your mouth and hit the ears of people you don't know enough about to be able to trust.

Generally, people that encourage your stupid ideas aren't quality friends.

Stupid things will get you in trouble. Could be small trouble. Could be really big trouble.

I have a friend who does more than his share of stupid things, and since his two closest friends kept trying to talk him out of those things, he cultivated new friends. At his heart he is a prepper. He is far too unhealthy to be any sort of danger, and he acknowledges that.

One of those new friends just got picked up by the state B.I., along with all his computers, guns [and] other assorted stuff. Blowing off steam is one thing.

Using a "free" email service to sending emails that entertain all sorts of vengeance plots is another. Participating in email groups where that sort of thing goes on is stupid.

Following up those emails with in-person meetings of supposed like-minded travelers is running the stupid flag to the top of the pole for everyone to see.

Some of you may know that old poker saying: If you are sitting at the table and you can't figure out who the donkey is, you are the donkey.

Well similar to that is that in any group of 3 people plotting violence, no matter how justified two of those my feel, the third is probably an informant.

It was stupid of my friend to visit with those people a few weeks ago, even if his goal was to talk them down. We tried to talk him out of it, but now I fear he will soon be joining his new friend in trouble with the law, even though his focus is prepping and personal defense.

Things are bad, and they are going to get worse.

There will be all sorts of depredations visited upon us by those who wield all the influence of culture, academia, and state...

Still more.

 

Paige Spiranac for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (VIDEO)

Flashback, "Golfer Paige Spiranac Is the Newest Member of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2018."

BONUS: "Paige Spiranac to men: COVID-19 test is no worse than giving you oral sex."

Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

At Amazon, Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations.

Dueling Protests and Violence at Pacific Beach?

Actually, no. 

Or is that Ngo, as in Andy Ngo, "A mob of antifa assault a small group of conservatives in San Diego, Cal. The black bloc mob is also waving an #antifa flag."

Antifa goons are using the Capitol riot to get him banned from Twitter, which they've been trying to do for years, to say nothing of murdering him.

Also at ABC News 10 San Diego:

Amazon Suspends Parler, Threatening to Take Pro-Trump Site Offline Indefinitely

It's actually Amazon's "AWS" --- Amazon Web Services, where Parler's been hosted. The alternative social media platform has already been de-platformed off Apple and Google's app stores. Amazon's AWS move is the coup de grâce.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "UPDATE: Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service":

“In a post on Sunday evening following publication of this story, Parler CEO John Matze said it is possible ‘Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.’”

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t know if you can buy Parler stock, but it should be rising on the strength of its private antitrust suit against a bunch of deep-pocketed tech firms.

Tested: 2021 Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo vs. Audi A4 45

 From Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "MAZDA’S LUXURY-BRAND AMBITIONS":

Bottom line: “As it stands now, the Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo offers a hell of a lot of car for the money, while the Audi A4 offers an appropriate amount of car for the money.”

 

Chad Felix Greene is Absolutely on Fire!

I've been meaning to follow him, but wasn't sure if he was the genuine article. But after seeing this thread, I'm gobsmacked!

And it's now available on the Thread Reader App (which hasn't been banned yet by Big Tech). 

Here, "Chad Felix Greene":

Every person on the left believes they just survived the parallel to the rise of Nazism in Germany and they defeated it.

They stopped it.

They believe all Republicans are 1950's white racists.

They feel empowered to live out their Civil Rights warrior fantasies. They imagine themselves toppling Jim Crow and the Confederacy and the Nazi army in one swoop and every powerful authority is on their side.

They aren't silencing conservative speech.

They are eradicating violence, terrorism, racism and hate from the internet.

*****

They are *gleeful* we are vulnerable and scared of our voice being suppressed.

They think we are the people in old 1950's photos angrily shouting at black school children.

We are not people to them.

We are symbols of what they feel morally driven to remove from the world.

The most powerful people who influence technology see us the same way.

We aren't customers.

We aren't users.

We aren't people with real lives and families and businesses.

We are a problem to be solved and they've been trying to figure out how for years and finally can do it.

The reason free market ideals no longer work is because the market is controlled by fewer and fewer people who dominate all options.

And those people are ideologically driven to eradicate from society all sources of hate.

Its a religious crusade. And we are the target.

*****

We cannot reason with them. They see our pleas for fairness like you would imagine a segregationist doing so.

They believe - believe - that once we are gone the internet and therefore society will be cleansed, free, peaceful and able to heal FROM US.

I say 'us' because we are not the one's defining our place in this world.

We aren't white supremacists or nazis or bigots or violent insurrectionists.

But the powerful have segregated society into good and bad thought and their strict and narrow worldview has placed us here.

We are innocent.

But it doesn't matter to them.

They *hate* what they imagine we are.

They cannot be persuaded otherwise. You cannot convince them *you* are a good person wrongly categorized.

The only people with influence have made up their minds and don't care to change it.

The *only* option is a steady Civil Rights movement to make it illegal, step by step, to do this to us.

They won't voluntarily stop. They think they are the heroes of the story fighting for the good of humanity.

Each remaining GOP leader MUST begin NOW.

Legal action.

Now.

*****

This means adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination law in red states.

We no longer have the luxury of arguing against the idea of protected classes.

We are now a marginalized group.

You need to accept that and behave as such.

This is a Civil Rights movement. If you think you are exempt from this because you didn't vote for Trump or you defend businesses with 'they have a right to' you are not paying attention.

*You* do not define your status.

Its imposed onto you.

Just like every prior targeted group.

You are a minority now. You are targeted for what you believe, who you are associated with and - be very clear - your existence. You cannot change that fact.

This has been applied to you.

Enough bickering over the philosophical nuances.

You are a marginalized minority now.

1st step is adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination AND hate crime laws because the left targets us for physical violence.

Create the legal framework to force businesses and corporations to defend their discrimination policies.

Force them to second guess them. We don't need the federal level to do this.

We just need a solid foundation to force their hand legally.

This will not stop until it is illegal and enforced to stop.

You will not shame them into acting ethically or fairly.

Any GOP who refuses to act must be voted out. Eventually we must stop treating the internet as a fad and gadget we can just toss aside and move on from.

We must have an internet bill of rights.

Legal rights protecting all people from censorship and banning for who they are or what they believe.

This is a new world.

*****

Again.

I understand the traditional free market arguments, but they no longer apply.

Businesses are behaving collectively as they did in the 1950's Jim Crow era and joining together to discriminate against a single group in order to protect themselves from popular outrage. You are now in that group.

Your entire online life.

Your online communication.

Your digital currency.

Your job.

Your healthcare.

Your access to the world.

Its not 'just Twitter.'

It can be taken from you for nothing more than a photo or an association.

You cannot compete. People who believe your skin color, your sexuality, your gender identity, your faith and the core beliefs that make up how you engage in politics place you in a category deserving of discrimination and violence *control* your life right now.

Understand this.

Stop fighting it.

It is time to relentlessly legally fight back.

We don't like to do this. But its our only option to regain liberty.

******

Every act of racism, seismic, discrimination, religious discrimination - all of it must be treated like an LGBT person suing over a wedding cake.

I cannot repeat this enough. The powerful left **will not** voluntarily stop this crusade.

We must use available legal efforts now to overwhelm them with lawsuits and legal challenges to stop all forms of discrimination they feel entitled to now.

Political Affiliation too. I am a gay/trans man and a Jew.

I know what discrimination and marginalization is.

I know what its like to be hated for nothing more than who you are.

This is it.

This is real.

 

New Impeachment Would Damage the Constitution

From Professor Jonathan Turley, at the Hill, "Swift new impeachment would damage the Constitution":

The author Franz Kafka once wrote, “My guiding principle is this. Guilt is never to be doubted.” Democrats suddenly appear close to adopting that standard into the Constitution as they prepare for a second impeachment of President Trump. With seeking his removal for incitement, Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends.

Democrats are seeking to remove Trump on the basis of his remarks to supporters before the rioting at the Capitol. Like others, I condemned those remarks as he gave them, calling them reckless and wrong. I also opposed the challenges to electoral votes in Congress. But his address does not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code. It would be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court.

When I testified in the impeachment hearings of Trump and Bill Clinton, I noted that an article of impeachment does not have to be based on any clear crime but that Congress has looked to the criminal code to weigh impeachment offenses. For this controversy now, any such comparison would dispel claims of criminal incitement. Despite broad and justified condemnation of his words, Trump never actually called for violence or riots. But he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress. Trump told the crowd “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”

Still more (via Memeorandum).  

The All-Out Assault on Conservative Thought Has Just Begun

 A great piece, from Tyler O'Neill, at Pajamas:

After the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and others renewed their demands for the suppression of conservative speech on social media. After Trump’s supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Big Tech companies clamped down on President Donald Trump and many of his supporters. Incoming President Joe Biden has said he plans to pass a law against domestic terrorism.

While conservatives rightly denounced the violence this week, this response bodes ill for conservative speech not just on social media, but in the public square and even in private organizations.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account for the first time and Facebook permanently banned the president. After Trump deleted the tweets Twitter had flagged and had his account restored, Twitter proceeded to ban him entirely on Friday, and then it banned the official President of the United States (POTUS) account.

Facebook throttled the great Rush Limbaugh, notifying him that his “Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news.” Limbaugh left Twitter in protest after the platform banned Trump. Apple and Google attacked Parler, claiming that the new haven for conservatives had allowed people to plan the violence of the Capitol riots on its platform.

House Democrats filed articles of impeachment that explicitly blame President Trump for the Capitol riots, even though he never told his supporters to invade the Capitol. While the president’s exaggerated rhetoric inflamed the rioters, Democrats repeatedly did the same thing this summer. Before and after Black Lives Matter protests devolved into destructive and deadly riots, Democratic officials repeatedly claimed America suffers from “systemic racism” and institutionalized “white supremacy.”

Big Tech did not remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accounts when she called for “uprisings” against the Trump administration. Facebook and Twitter did not target Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she claimed that allegedly marginalized groups have “no choice but to riot.” These platforms did not act against Kamala Harris when she said the riots “should not” stop.

This week, Joe Biden condemned the Capitol rioters, saying, “What we witnessed yesterday was not dissent, it was not disorder, it was not protest. It was chaos. They weren’t protesters, don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It’s that basic, it’s that simple.”

Yet he refused to speak in those terms when Black Lives Matter and antifa militants were throwing Molotov cocktails at federal buildings, setting up “autonomous zones,” and burning down cities. Instead, he condemned Trump for holding up a Bible at a church — without mentioning the fact that that very church had been set on fire the night before.

Despite this hypocrisy, Biden’s speech on Thursday proved instructive. Biden used the Capitol riots to condemn Trump’s entire presidency, accusing Trump of having “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy from the outset.” Biden twisted Trump’s actions into an attack on “democracy.” He claimed Trump’s originalist judges were a ploy to undermine impartial justice — when they were truly the exact opposite. Biden claimed Trump’s complaints about the Obama administration spying on his campaign were merely an “attack” on America’s “intelligence services.” Biden said Trump’s complaints about media bias constituted an attack on the “free press,” when the Obama administration actually attacked the free press...

Keep reading. The article is backed up with tons of link-citations. 

 

Katie Pavlich Calls Out Michelle Obama (VIDEO)

My wife called out Michelle Obama, lol.

But here's the lovely Ms. Pavlich's take, at Fox News:

Jason Whitlock Decries the Elites' Sellout of the American People

Following-up from yesterday, "The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War."

See Jason Whitlock, at the Blaze, "Ignoring the concerns of Trump supporters will destroy America":

Ashli Babbitt's blood is on the hands of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg as much as, if not more than, on President Trump's. That's why Dorsey and Zuckerberg rushed to silence Trump on their respective platforms, Twitter and Facebook.

Political tension and violence are fomented, planned, and monetized on Silicon Valley's social media platforms. Wednesday's "violence" hit the wrong target. The Capitol is where global elites exchange cash for influence and privilege. It's where $150,000-a-year politicians become multimillionaires building cozy relationships with Big Tech lobbyists and American corporations looking to curry favor with China.

The Capitol is sacred ground for elites. The way you might revere a church edifice is the way millionaires and billionaires revere the Capitol.

The NBA multimillionaires said they played with "heavy hearts" Wednesday night after seeing the Capitol desecrated. They made twisted, illogical analogies between nonviolent civil disobedience and the rioting, looting, and violence that occurred in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Kenosha, and across this country all summer.

"It reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King has said, that there's two split different Americas," Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown told reporters. "In one America, you get killed by sleeping in your car, selling cigarettes or playing in your backyard. And then in another America, you get to storm the Capitol and no tear gas, no massive arrests, none of that."

Brown is right. There are two different American realities. There's the false reality world created by and for elites and their groupies. In this world, progressive elites feign concern for poor black people by championing the cause of a tiny handful of black resisting criminal suspects harmed by white police officers tasked with subduing them. The elites have no interest in the thousands of black men and boys killed annually due to random gang, street, and drug violence. Those black lives do not matter. Progressive elites live inside a social media matrix where they call the Crips and the Bloods to protect them from the police.

The rest of America lives in an alternate universe driven, at least partially, by reality, facts, and common sense. We don't see the norms of Western Civilization as the root of all evil. We have no interest in disrupting the nuclear family. We don't think the storming of the Capitol is analogous to the months of looting, arson, shooting, rioting, and anarchy we watched throughout 2020.

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers, a man I greatly respect, lives in a different reality than I do. His interpretation of Wednesday's chaos baffles me.

"No police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people. People peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol," Rivers told reporters Wednesday. "So it shows you can peacefully disperse a crowd. It basically proves a point about a privileged life in a lot of ways. I will say it, because I don't think a lot of people want to: Can you imagine [Wednesday], if those were all black people storming the Capitol, and what would have happened? That, to me, is a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see, and probably something for us to reckon with again."

What is he talking about? We've watched buildings burned to the ground this summer. We've seen "protesters" prowling the streets of Atlanta with semi-automatic weapons. We've seen protesters berate and spit on police officers. David Dorn, a 77-year-old, black retired cop, was assassinated. Parts of Portland have been under attack from Antifa and Black Lives Matter for months.

There have been no dogs, no billy clubs.

We don't have to imagine how law enforcement would react to black, lawless protesters. It has aired on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News all summer. The police have been remarkably restrained.

The media, athletes, and celebrities have treated black protesters as heroes. Politicians have taken knees and worn kente cloth to show allegiance with black protesters. Every national sportscaster and head coach has gone along with the facade that police pose a greater threat to black men than black men. We're inundated with television commercials promoting Black Lives Matter. The NFL has celebrated criminals involved in drive-by shootings. A laundry list of media personalities have taken turns rationalizing every violent, lawless action taken by Antifa or Black Lives Matter. No one cares that George Floyd stuck a gun in a pregnant black woman's belly or that Jacob Blake sexually assaulted a black woman. The New York Times commissioned a group of black female reporters to rewrite American history to fit the narrative of the critical race theory taught at our academic institutions.

The concerns propagandized by the ministers of black victimhood are a high priority in American society. Sinners are excommunicated from their employment. There is so much money, fame, and adulation from joining the Church of Black Victimization that white people such as Shaun King and Rachel Dolezal have disavowed their natural heritage to identify as black.

A Trump supporter? He or she is an American pariah. A racist. A coon. An idiot. A sellout. Someone to be silenced or ignored.

Trump supporters will not go away quietly or peacefully. It's their country, too. Their concerns are legitimate. The lawmakers they chased to the basement of the Capitol sold out the American working-class man and woman...

RTWT.

Where's the Actual Incitement?

Did President Trump "incite" an "insurrection" against the government of the U.S.? 

Actually, no. 

But see Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP."

Ann Althouse is linked there, "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th":

There are places where he clearly talked about a peaceful protest march. He says: "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." And: "So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue... So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue."

But here are the 7 most violent statements. Please, if you can find anything more violent or more related to the idea breaking into the Capitol and physically disrupting the proceedings, let me know, and I'll add it to the list. This is what I've found and have put in order from least to most violent:

7. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.

6. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal…. We will not let them silence your voices.

5. The Republicans have to get tougher. You’re not going to have a Republican party if you don’t get tougher.

4. [W]e’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.

3. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. 2. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.

1. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Not violent, at all. 

More at Instapundit.

The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War

President Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter, and most other "unsocial" media platforms. 

The left is bringing on the civil war for which they keep blaming the other side. It's not going well.

At AoSHQ, "Lee Smith: The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves and Declared War." 

Here's Smith's essay, originally published at the Epoch Times:

When a regime sanctions the political violence of one faction against another, events like Wednesday’s bloody skirmishes at the Capitol are a foregone conclusion. Presumably the country’s corporate, political, and cultural elite assumed that after four years of trying to humiliate and unseat President Donald Trump that his supporters would simply accept their continued degradation, impoverishment, and disenfranchisement. Or maybe they thought that with their allied press and social media obscuring reality, no one would notice they were waging war on Americans.

Details of Wednesday’s events are still unfolding. In places, protestors overran police. A Capitol Police officer died of injuries suffered while holding off protestors and others were reportedly injured. Elsewhere it seems that law enforcement welcomed Trump supporters into the Capitol and posed for pictures with them. No doubt there were agents provocateurs among the MAGA crowd, but Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Hill policeman when she tried to crawl through a window, wasn’t with Antifa. She proudly supported Trump, as she proudly served her country, doing four tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

No one in the building the 15-year Air Force veteran entered illegally can explain why America is still committed to those strategically pointless wars.

Neither can anyone on the Democratic or Republican side rationally justify why large parts of the country are still under coronavirus lockdowns—public health measures draining Americans’ life savings and, as importantly, their hope—to fight an illness with a 99.7 percent survival rate.

No one can say why the senior FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Pentagon, and State Department officials from the Obama administration who plotted against Trump’s White House before he was inaugurated are still at liberty, and why some have been named to the incoming Joe Biden administration.

Nor can the representatives of the American people explain to them why the lights went out in half a dozen states election night with Trump holding commanding leads and came back on hours later with Biden in front in all six.

But don’t blame the people sent to Washington for the fate and fortune of the Americans they’re supposed to represent. Rep Liz Cheney says Trump is at fault for Wednesday’s unrest. “The president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob,” she said. The Wyoming Congresswoman is one of the staunchest supporters of the Afghanistan war, begun when her father was George W. Bush’s vice president. To hand down a war from one generation to the next is the sign of a careless and depraved elite.

Trump’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis also blames Trump. “His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice,” wrote the retired Marine General. In June, he defended the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that caused billions of dollars in damage across the country and left dozens dead, including law enforcement officers. Those protests, said Mattis, “are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values.”

Both parties within the Beltway are joined in their attacks on Trump because partisan identity—Democrat and Republican—is no longer relevant in U.S. politics. It’s the Country Party, currently represented by Trump, vs the Establishment Party, representing the interests of an oligarchy anchored by Big Tech and owing its power, wealth, and prestige to its access to cheap Chinese labor and China’s growing consumer market.

The establishment party protects its protestors because they are the instruments weaponized to target Trump supporters. “Protestors should not let up,” vice president elect Kamala Harris said of the summer’s violence. “There needs to be unrest in the streets as long as there’s unrest in our lives,” said Rep Ayanna Pressley. “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

It is not hypocrisy that corporations like Bank of America and Coca-Cola that issued statements in support of the summer riots were quick to denounce Wednesday’s protests. Nor is it hypocrisy that the activists who took over parts of a Senate office building to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh were celebrated while Biden and the press labeled the people who broke into a federal building Wednesday domestic terrorists. It is not hypocrisy for the establishment to draw a sharp divide allies and enemies, but just evidence that they are at war with the party of the country.

History, simple common sense, tells that when one side shoots at the other, the side taking incoming has two choices: surrender or shoot back. There is little doubt the party of the establishment will use the events on the Hill to implement further measures to punish the party of the country, for they would use any pretext—a respiratory illness, for example—to serve those ends. But now they can no longer be sure how the party of the country will respond.

 

Dems Push Ahead on Impeachment, Aiming for Vote Next Week

Following-up from last night, "'The Associated Press reported the Capitol Police turned down offers of help to deal with pro-Trump protesters from not one but two law enforcement agencies, opting to treat Wednesday's rally as if it were a free speech demonstration...'"

Never forget that all the Biden-Harris talk of "unifying" the country was all campaign lies. 

At NYT, "Live Updates: Democrats Look to Impeachment as Chaos Engulfs Trump’s White House":

Democrats plunged forward on Friday with plans to impeach President Trump over his role in inciting a violent mob attack on the Capitol, picking up some potential Republican support to move as early as next week to try to force Mr. Trump from office just as his term is drawing to a close.

Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 4 Democrat, said that if Vice President Mike Pence would not invoke the 25th Amendment to forcibly relieve Mr. Trump of his duties, Democrats were prepared to act by the middle of next week to impeach him for a second time. Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to gather Democrats by telephone at noon to discuss the effort.

They were rushing to begin the expedited proceeding two days after the president rallied his supporters near the White House, urging them to go to the Capitol to protest his election defeat, then continuing to stoke their grievances as they stormed the edifice — with Mr. Pence and the entire Congress meeting inside to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory — in a rampage that left five dead.

“If the reports are correct and Mike Pence is not going to uphold his oath of office and remove the president and help protect our democracy, then we will move forward with impeachment to do just that,” Ms. Clark said in an interview on CNN.

She added that Democrats would use a fast-track process the could begin as early as “mid-next week.”

“We have a president who incited a seditious mob to storm the Capitol,” Ms. Clark said. “We now have five deaths from that and the harm to our democracy is really unfathomable.”

The prospect of forcing Mr. Trump from office in less than two weeks appeared remote given the logistical and political challenges involved, given that a two-thirds majority in the Senate would be required. But the push unfolded amid a sense of national crisis following the Capitol siege, as White House resignations piled up and some Republicans appeared newly open to the possibility, which could also disqualify Mr. Trump from holding political office in the future...

"What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger," as Friedrich Nietzsche apparently said. 

Democrats will further divide the nation and make the MAGA forces stronger. You can go to the bank with that, sheesh.

President Trump Won't Attend Biden's Inauguration

Prolly a good idea, at this point. (*Eye-roll.*)

At USA Today, "Politics live updates: Trump says he won't attend Joe Biden's inauguration."

Miya Ponsetto Arrested Over Cell Phone Attack: Denies Racism; Tells Gayle King 'Enough' (VIDEO)

The notorious "SoHo Karen."

Truly bizarre, but not surprising, given our destructive youth entitlement culture. 

The woman refused to take responsibility, and then gets herself arrested!

At CBS This Morning, "The 22-year-old woman caught on camera allegedly physically attacking a 14-year-old Black teen and falsely accusing him of stealing her phone was arrested in California.In an exclusive interview, Miya Ponsetto and her lawyer spoke with @GayleKing hours before she was arrested."

Also at Bro Bible, "SoHo Karen" Miya Ponsetto, who falsely accused a black teenager of stealing her iPhone,  shushed Gayle King in a bizarre interview hours before her arrest."

And at TMZ:

7:54 PM PT -- Law enforcement sources tell us Miya went anything but peacefully. We're told officers attempted to pull her over 3 blocks from home, but she refused. Once in her driveway, officers had to physically pull Miya out of her car and in the process, she attempted to slam the door on a deputies leg, we're told she will likely face additional charges of resisting arrest. Ponsetto is being held without bail as she'll be extradited to NYC.

This is not a good person, needless to say. 

 

Trump Erases His Legacy

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "He also destroyed any chance of a political future, all on a single Wednesday afternoon":

A politician has to work hard to destroy a legacy and a future in a single day. President Donald J. Trump managed it.

By this Wednesday afternoon, media outlets had called both Georgia Senate runoffs for the Democratic candidates, handing Sen. Chuck Schumer the keys to that chamber. We now have a Democrat-controlled Washington. The Georgia news came as a mob of Trump supporters—egged on by the president himself—occupied the U.S. Capitol building. Now four people are dead, while aides and officials run for the exits.

It didn’t have to be this way. The president had every right—even an obligation, given the ad hoc changes to voting rules—to challenge state election results in court. But when those challenges failed (which every one did, completely), he had the opportunity to embrace his legacy, cement his accomplishments, and continue to play a powerful role in GOP politics.

Mr. Trump could have reveled in the mantle of the one-term disrupter—the man the electorate sent to Washington to deliver the message that it was tired of business as usual. He could have pointed out just how successful he was in that mission by stacking his cabinet with reformers, busting convention, and overseeing policy changes that astounded (and delighted) even many warrior conservatives.

The withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Iranian deal. The greatest tax simplification and reduction since Reagan. The largest deregulatory effort since—well, ever. Three Supreme Court justices and 54 appellate court judges. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. The Jerusalem embassy. Criminal-justice reform. Opportunity zones. He could have noted that the greatest proof of just how much Democrats and the establishment feared his mission were the five years of investigations, hysterical allegations and “deep state” sabotage — which he survived...

You prolly can't read the rest, as it's behind the paywall. (I was able to RTWT on my phone.)

Strassel goes on to argue that Trump needed to fully invest himself in Georgia: "Every day needed to be about fundraising, rallying the troops, making clear to his supporters that the only way to preserve his legacy was to keep the Senate in GOP hands. ... This isn't what happened..."

And you know the rest: While popular (even in this household), Trump's demands for a $2,000 stimulus check, "his veto of a defense authorization bill that provided pay raises and support for Georgia's military bases," and his hopeless denial of the results of the presidential election "energized Democrats and depressed Republicans."

With that cluster of a political miscalculation, Charles Schumer, the incoming Senate Majority Leaders, "will now methodically erase ... [Trump's phenomenal] policy legacy." 

****

Folks, I voted to reelect President Trump, but I too am feeling betrayed by his personal selfishness. Millions of people have supported him over the years, and literally 74 million Americans pulled the lever to send him back for another term. And for what? Death and destruction on Capitol Hill? 

And hold off on your, "But, but, what about the ..."

Trump screwed the pooch and snatched congressional defeat from the jaws of victory. It's really sad. And now just this morning we learn that the radical left is making urgent (perhaps hysterical) demands that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer retire to make way for a younger (more ideologically polarizing) leftist replacement, ideally a black woman. (See Politico for that, "Liberals to Breyer: Time to Retire.")

So, it's all crashing down. 

Andrew McCarthy was on Fox News with Sandra Smith earlier, and he said the next two years are going to be "explosive." 

Gird your loins, people. 

Real Life Is Not Twitter

Or a video game. 

See Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain, "Practically everybody on Twitter today [yesterday] is sharing their opinion of what happened Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Not only are Democrats using the mob scene at the Capitol to smear all Republicans as traitors, etc., but a lot of “conservative” are making a point of how much they deplore the unruly rabble. See, it is not enough — from the moralistic standpoint of political Twitter — that we refrain from bad behavior, but we are expected to ostentatiously proclaim how much we despise those who do. To maintain one’s status as a pundit, you must “distance” yourself from Those Deplorables Over There, heaping up a pile of epithets and pejorative descriptors, to make clear In No Uncertain Terms that you’re a Serious Intellectual, rather than part of the lumpenproletariat."

PREVIOUSLY: "Video of Shooting Death of Ashli Babbitt (GRAPHIC WARNING)."

'The Associated Press reported the Capitol Police turned down offers of help to deal with pro-Trump protesters from not one but two law enforcement agencies, opting to treat Wednesday's rally as if it were a free speech demonstration...'

I saw the A.P. story earlier and tweeted it. 

I'm coming back to this now, because a Capitol Police officer was killed yesterday in the line of duty. 

At USA Today, "DC riots live updates: Capitol Police officer dies from injuries; FBI offers $50K reward for pipe bomb suspect info":

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Capitol Police officer died Thursday after being injured when supporters of President Donald Trump raided the Capitol building on Wednesday, bringing the total number of fatalities to five.

Brian D. Sicknick "was injured while physically engaging with protesters" on Wednesday, USCP said in a statement. He returned to his division office and collapsed, then was taken to a local hospital where he died Thursday evening.

"The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners," the USCP said in a statement.

Sicknick had been with the USCP since July 2008, and most recently served in the department’s First Responders Unit, officials said in a statement. ...

Before sunrise Thursday, the lawn in front of the Capitol was nearly deserted and silent, a stark contrast from the cheering and chanting of Wednesday's massive crowd that eventually devolved into chaos.

Thursday showed little evidence of the pro-Trump mob that breached the U.S. Capitol, forcing the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory to be postponed in an attack that left four demonstrators dead.

The Washington Post reported several dozen people arrested Wednesday made first appearances in court Thursday.

Also Thursday, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, whose department was severely criticized for its flawed response to Wednesday's attack, resigned abruptly.

The Associated Press reported the Capitol Police turned down offers of help to deal with pro-Trump protesters from not one but two law enforcement agencies, opting to treat Wednesday's rally as if it were a free speech demonstration.

The lack of preparation and support allowed rioters to breach the Capitol building with little resistance, endangering legislators and resulting in a mob scene that sent shudders throughout the world.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser was among several critics who called the police's actions “a failure.”

But "many others" (the story continues) --- meaning in particular the far-left cable network pundits --- claimed "racism" in the alleged "disparate" response between Wednesday's events and the D.C. protests following George Floyd's death last year, and this (of course) was evidence of the "systemic" injustices that privileged "white supremacist domestic terrorism" over Black Live Matter "peaceful protesters."

Now, apparently, Democrats think is the winning message, damn the "unity" agenda the president-elect has been proclaiming this past two months. 

And don't let Bowser off the hook either. According to the Twitter chatter today, she apparently told the D.C. National Guard that only "unarmed" units would be allowed at the Capitol, and should they need more firepower, they'd have to return to their barracks and come back with the needed firepower later. She's on video saying "the Metropolitan Police Department has been deployed to assist the U.S. Capitol Police ... in restoring order..."

As Stars and Stripes reported, "The initial 340 [National Guard] troops activated earlier this week were deployed without firearms or other weapons and without body armor."

And also seen on Twitter, "In a letter to federal officials Monday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser urged federal law enforcement to have a light footprint for Wednesday’s protests, seeking to avoid the type of show of force that inflamed tense situations last year."

And according to this report at Politico, President Trump had authorized acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller to "take any necessary steps to support law enforcement..."

Great call, Muriel!

This country is totally FUBAR. (*Eye-roll.*)